


You know what they say about assuming

by little_dumpling



Series: Out of You and Me [1]
Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alpha Harvey Specter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Betrayal, Hurt/Comfort, Louis is a good bro, M/M, Mpreg, Omega Mike Ross, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2020-10-13 20:49:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20588879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_dumpling/pseuds/little_dumpling
Summary: Mike hasn’t been feeling well lately. It might have something to do with that night when he and Harvey… but he doesn’t really have time to think about that right now. Because right now, Jessica is threatening him, trying to make him roll over so this stupid Darby merger can happen. He won’t do that to Harvey, he’ll happily lose his job first, that is until Jessica takes her threats further than Mike can handle.Warnings: o-verse and ALL that entails, Omega!Mike, Alpha!Harvey, background Harvey/Scottie, Spoilers for S2 & S3, angst (so much angst), pregnancy, and Louis is a good bro. (Also, Rachel and Mike are just friends, and she doesn’t know his secret.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a million years since I've actually written and posted something (7 years according to LJ, haha), so apologies if anything isn't up to snuff.
> 
> Spoilers for/and up to beginning/mid-season 3. At the end of S2 & beginning of S3, Harvey is pissed at Mike for having caved to Jessica's blackmail that she was going to tell the DA that Mike was practicing law without a licence/degree. I was honestly a bit pissed at the writers myself! Especially since Harvey had always shown Mike that he was willing to lose everything for Mike, (in fact he'd literally just shown this 12 episodes before when he'd told Jessica if Mike was fired, so was Harvey), and I really just found the whole thing in poor taste, since Mike has shown himself so incredibly loyal. I mean you just have to look at his history with that jerk Trevor, or any client he's ever felt connected to. So then I thought, what if I changed that, what if he refused to back down when Jessica threatened him? Well then Jessica would have to use an even riskier threat. Because she plays to win, and sometimes that means playing dirty. And then I thought, what if I then threw in Omegaverse just for fun, bc I kind of love o!verse a _lot_.
> 
> Some dialogue taken directly from S2E16 in this chapter.

** Present, Friday evening **

“You wanted to see me?” Mike straightened his back as he walked into Jessica’s office, his head swam a bit as he stood as tall as he could.

“That request went out two hours ago,” Jessica continued to type on her computer.

“Uh, yeah. I was in the middle of something.”

“What were you in the middle of?” She stopped typing and glanced up at him, her shoulders set high.

“Excuse me?” Mike fluffed, wishing he’d never left his desk.

“You said you were in this middle of something. I assume its Harvey’s case.” She crossed her hands on her desk.

“I can’t tell you that, you’re on the other side.”

“Is there some rule against checking on my own employee?” She asked, eyes hard.

Mike took a deep breath, he wasn’t about to back down, even if she was scary as hell. “I’m confident that after tomorrow, you’ll either settle this suit or lose,” he told her honestly. Harvey was going to win, and Mike was going to help, because that was what they did. They won. And he felt confident they’d win and stifle the firm’s merger with Darby; but that didn’t mean he didn’t wish he were somewhere far from here right now. Not to mention the incredible nausea that was rolling through him. And he definitely wouldn’t look so confident if he suddenly threw-up all over Jessica’s desk, so he gulped down the bile and tried to keep his composure.

“And why is that?” Jessica looked at him with both amusement and incredulity. Mike recognized that look, it was the same look Harvey gave him when Harvey thought he was being soft, floppy puppy: _‘You’re cute, but you’re wrong. Shut up and listen while the adults are talking.’_

“Because I’ve prepared a motion based on a file dated September 14th.”

“Darby didn’t tell me about that,” she frowned, her amusement gone.

“He didn’t know about it.”

“Where’d you get it?” She stood up and moved around her desk and into his personal space.

He shook his head, hand clenched inside his pockets. He wasn’t going to back down.

“What does it say?”

“It says you’re going to lose,” he replied reluctantly. If there could have been any way to stay out of this fight between Harvey and Jessica, he would have, he just hoped he wasn’t about to be the second casualty of this war (the first being Scottie of course, not that he felt that bad about her, he’d never liked her anyway). But the churning in his gut, and dark look in Jessica’s eyes told him this was about to get nasty. He firmly ignored the instinct to run like hell and tried not breathe in Jessica’s alpha pheromones as they got stronger with her anger.

“Then that’s too bad…” She said nonchalantly. “Because you’re going to throw it away.”

“What?” He exclaimed. And here came the real fear. He was glad he’d showered in neutralizing body wash, and worn omega-strength deodorant this morning, or she would be able to see right through him, right now.

“You heard me,” her voice was harsh. “You’re going to go home,” she turned her back and began to walk away. “You don’t call, you don’t answer, and you don’t come back until that deadline has passed.”

“Wait a minute, these are your clients!”

“Who Harvey is using,” she glared from the other side of her desk. Using the furniture as a stage piece to her show off power.

“That’s a bullshit argument,” he shot back. Mike couldn’t afford to let Harvey down.

“And so is that file,” She glared. Mike could almost see her incisors extending and her eyes flashing red as their werewolf ancestors had, before they’d first began to mix with the human population, centuries ago.

He paused and swallowed, willing his nausea to settle. “I won’t.”

“You will.”

“Harvey will never forgive me,” he shook his head and turned away, so very ready to be out of this office.

“Right now, your problem isn’t with Harvey.” She scolded his back, her voice alpha deep, and he winced. “Your problem is with me. You don’t do this, who is to say you don’t end up in a cell for practicing law without a degree.”

He stopped and whipped back around, his own face hard. “And who is to say you don’t share that cell with me, for knowing about it the whole time.”

She smirked and shook her head, “You don’t want to take that tact.”

“I didn’t start it.”

“I will beat you.” She said with a fierce growl.

“The last time you said that to me, you thought you didn’t need a computer.” He said, feeling a bit more confident. “You were wrong.”

“That was about demonstrating knowledge, and the stakes were nothing,” she scoffed. “This is about my power, and the stakes are everything.”

Mike glared. “Typical alpha, all you care about is lording over all the rest of us, and showing whose dick is biggest.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but there was no turning back, and if she was going to play dirty, then so was he.

“Oh you want to go there?” A deep bite to her voice. “This is a letter to the district attorney, saying that it’s come to my attention that you are breaking the law.”

“Do it,” he snapped back, his eyes felt itchy with the beginnings of tears, but he blinked them clear, he couldn’t afford to get emotional right now. “I don’t give a shit what you do to me, I won’t do that to Harvey.”

“No, I know you do care, but you just give more of a shit about your relationship with Harvey than yourself,” she sneered. “So, not only will I send this letter, but I’ll also turn Harvey in to the senior partners and the bar association for sexual harassment, by having a sexual relationship with an employee. Not only will he lose his job, but it will ruin his reputation.” She paused letting her full threat sink in. “He might have been able to skirt away from knowingly help you break the law, but you and I both know how sensationalized gender issues and sexual harassment cases are right now, it will break him. Just last week a lawyer lost his licence for the same thing. He’ll be lucky to practice law in Antarctica once I’m done with him.”

“You don’t have any proof, and I’d never testify against him during a hearing. I’ll just say that _I_ came on to _him_.”

She chuckled a deep rumbling sound, “I smelt him all over you that Monday morning after he flew back in from the Folsum Foods depositions. And if I could tell, other employees will be able to testify the same. Don’t think for a second that if you’re going through a trial of your own for fraud, your word will mean anything in a hearing. Plus I could tell them he’d threatened you, holding the knowledge of your fraud over your head so he could sleep with you. Besides _Mike_, you think he’s never crossed the line before with other betas and omegas he’s worked with? Because if you don’t believe that, you don’t know him at all. He likes to get his dick wet and he knows exactly how to do it and who to do it with. Once I get a few of them to come forward, he’ll be done, and your word will mean nothing.”

Mike clamped his mouth shut, sick coming up the back of it, and swallowed hard. He knew what had happened between him and Harvey had been a one-time thing that it had been completely consensual. He’d been dealing with a relief heat from his medication, and Harvey had just wanted some physical comfort from someone other than Scottie, who Harvey had been fighting with at the time. He also knew that no one else would see it that way, and with the way the media had been portraying these cases lately, it wouldn’t matter if Harvey was innocent: Harvey’s reputation would be ruined. Not to mention Harvey might be facing possible fraud charges too.

His head swam and he took a few stuttered breaths through his nose.

“So you file your motion, I’ll file mine,” She whispered in his ear. “Both of them. And then neither of you will be my problem anymore.”

His eyes felt heavy and wet with tears, but he forced himself not to blink so they wouldn’t spill down his cheeks. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he nodded and left the office as quick as he could.

***

Mike spent the next hour crying and vomiting in the bathroom, before being able to pull himself together. He wasn’t often this emotional (or this nauseous, but that could be explained away by how under the weather he’d been feeling lately). He usually only felt this emotional and vulnerable right before a period, during heat, or when he was absolutely exhausted, running on too little sleep with too much stress. And right now, none of those things could explain away his sudden emotional outburst. There was another thing that could explain the emotions and nausea, an idea that tingled at the back of his mind, but he pushed that away and left the stall to wash his shaking hands.

He ran cold water over his pink face, trying to calm the flush on his cheeks and eyelids, and was wiping away the water with a paper towel when the bathroom door swung open and Harvey strode in.

“Okay, look, Harvey—”

“Shut your mouth,” Harvey yelled at him. “I risked everything for you. Then I did it again, and again!”

“Wait, you weren’t there,” Mike tried to reason.

“I didn’t have to be.”

“Jessica—”

“You don’t work for Jessica, you work for me.”

Mike could see the anger in Harvey’s jaw. “I know I do, but I was just trying to get you what you wanted, and it backfired. But Harvey, you have to believe me, I really was trying to help you get your name on the door.” Mike pleaded, he needed Harvey to know how much it was hurting him to not finish the job Harvey had asked him to do. But he just couldn’t play with both their lives that way. Besides, if Harvey lost, it wasn’t the end of the world.

“No,” Harvey shook his head, “You got Edward Darby’s name on the door. My part of the deal, it’s gone.”

“What? You never told me that!” Oh no no no, if Harvey was about to lose his job either way, what did it matter that he’d bowed to Jessica’s threat then?

“I didn’t think I needed to tell you that.” Harvey’s voice was firm and deep with fury, “Because I didn’t think you’d ever betray me.”

“Harvey, look at what we’ve done. You _and_ me! You snuck into their confidential files and I got information we legally shouldn’t have from Scottie! That’s two ethical violations that six weeks ago, would have made your stomach turn.” Mike didn’t mention how much his own stomach was turning, though he still wasn’t sure why it was turning.

“That’s not why you did it.” Harvey’s voice quieted, disappointment seeping through.

“Fine. But look me in the eye and tell me it’s not true anyway.” Mike stepped closer to Harvey, desperate to make physical contact with the alpha. He felt so adrift with confusion and hurt.

“You know what, it doesn’t matter. Because you don’t get to make my decisions for me.” Harvey’s eyes were hard.

“Isn’t that what you were trying to do for me?” A voice sounded from the doorway.

Harvey turned to watch Jessica stride into the room. And Mike looked down at the floor in shame. He couldn’t get her threats out of his mind, or how thoroughly she’d pushed him, thereby letting Harvey down.

“This is a private conversation,” Harvey barked at her.

“You want to have it out, let’s have it out… Right now.” She turned her gaze to Mike, “You might want to go.”

Harvey turned to look at him. If Mike had thought that Harvey had looked of betrayed before, it was tiny in comparison to the betrayal written all over his face right now, and it made Mike feel sicker than he had while vomiting earlier. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and moved past the man he’d grown to respect and love over the time that he’d been able to work with him.

“You’re back in the associate’s pool.”

“Harvey—” Mike wasn’t sure what he was about to say, only that he had to say something.

“Turns out you’re not the best lawyer I’ve ever seen. In fact, you’re fired.”

Mike felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He opened his mouth and almost thought to agree, because right now, he didn’t want to be anywhere near this firm.

“No, he’s not,” Jessica said instead, quietly, firmly.

“Oh, you’re going to overrule me on that too?” Harvey said bitterly.

“You can go.” Jessica told him kindly.

Not even taking a moment to register her tone, instead Mike bolted for the exit, and out into the lobby. Absolutely unable to face the thought of them finishing their conversation and coming out the door before he could get in the elevator, he moved to the stairwell and began to descend. At first he’d only meant to take the stairs down one level and take the elevator from the lower Pearson Hardman floor to the lobby, but couldn’t bring himself to go through the door. By the 43rd floor, he was ready to face the elevator again, but realized he’d left his building key card on his desk, and wouldn’t be able to get back in through any of the locked stairwell doors. Unable to do anything else, he continued down the stairs to the bottom.

His legs were aching fiercely by the time he pushed his way through the fire exit door on the ground floor, but he ignored it as he headed for his bike. He’d left his helmet in his desk too, so either he’d have to walk his bike home, or take an alternate mode of transportation.

But right now, nothing felt like it mattered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I re-watched all the season 2 episodes about the Folsum Foods gender discrimination case, and there is not a strict time line spoken of the merger S215-S3E1 per se.
> 
> So I've devised my own time line. In the show it seems like it's simply a matter of days, but in actuality, a company merger usually takes weeks, if not months/years to enact. Since the show has it move more quickly for television sake, I'm going to say it is around a month between the time Harvey and Scottie first worked together on that case, and then when the merger is announced (when Jessica threats Mike as a result of Harvey's lawsuit against the meger). A month then gives the bb a little time to percolate. :D  

> 
> (ETA) Just wanted to add a note on dub/non-con: There will be **none** in this fic. While in this verse of A/B/O has omegas going into heat, they still have semblance of mind and control over their own thoughts. Just wanted to add that, bc while Mike is entering heat when he and Harvey have sex, he is still conscious of his choices.

** Present, Friday evening **

_Mike's legs were aching fiercely by the time he walked all the way down from the 50th floor and pushed his way through the fire exit door on the ground floor of the building that held the illustrious law firm Pearson Hardman. But he ignored his aches as he headed for his bike. He’d left his helmet in his desk, so either he’d have to walk his bike home, or take an alternate mode of transportation._

_But right now, nothing felt like it mattered. He might not have lost his job tonight, but he'd ruined the closest friendship he'd ever had. He'd had so little in his life, until Harvey had given him everything. And Mike had lost it all, simply because he couldn't keep it in his pants as far as Harvey was concerned._

** 29 days earlier, Thursday afternoon **

“Don't take it so personally.” Mike was feeling warm when he walked past Donna, who was leaving Rachel's office, and sat down in a chair across from Rachel’s desk.

“What?” Rachel looked up at him in shock and confusion.

“That's what someone said to me,” Mike ignored her expression and focused on the case, because his brain felt a bit like it was slowing down. He always hated his yearly relief heat, and here it was coming on quickly. He needed to last 36 more hours until his weekend would start, hoping his symptoms wouldn't get too severe, so that no one would suspect what was really going on inside his body as it began to ramp up into a heat. Then he could go back to his apartment and spend a miserable weekend riding his own fingers, until he got through it and had to come back into work on Monday. “And whenever someone says it's not personal, it is, because everything is personal.”

“I know,” The paralegal said softly and looked down at her desk.

Just last week her sad expression would have cried out to Mike and made him want to hold her close and fix whatever was troubling her. But this close to his heat, her neutral beta smell made his brain shut off his ability to care about her needs, and focus only on his own. “What do you think Hanley Folsum's personal opinion is on hiring beta women and omegas?”

“Uh, that he doesn't think we're good enough? But I mean, it's not like he would say it out loud.”

“Well not at work,” Mike agreed.

“Which is why you need access to his personal correspondence,” Rachel nodded.

“Exactly.” Mike leaned forward and took a deep breath, grateful that Rachel's pheromones wouldn't make his heat ramp up faster, but instead, sooth and cool him down a little bit. Thank goodness for beta friends.

“That's outside the scope of documentation we’re allowed to see for this case.”

“Well let's find a way to put it inside the scope.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Rachel queried.

“No. But I have 62 boxes and 12 hours to find an idea.” He looked at her earnestly.

“Exactly what I need to do right now instead of thinking. Let's go!” She jumped up from her desk and headed for the door.

Mike followed behind her, wondering how Harvey was doing at the deposition right now, and kind of grateful he hadn't been able to go with him on the trip after all. That much time in close contact with an alpha would have pushed his heat into coming on early, and then his secret wouldn't be so secret anymore.

***

The next 2 work days were hell. There were times Mike felt like his brain was melting. But they were made a little better by Harvey spending most of his time focusing on Scottie, rather than expecting Mike to be around hanging off his every word. There was also only one other alpha in the associates bullpen, but he was out at a client's going through records all week. So really, things were going as well as they possibly could right now.

“I found this for you!” Rachel said excitedly, standing over his cubicle wall and handing him a file folder. “It’s access to Hanley Folsum and all the records we haven’t been able to see.”

“This would have been a lot more helpful earlier today, when Jessica was reaming me out for not having enough documentation on Folsum.” Mike sighed, but took the folder from her. It had been Rachel’s share of the work that hadn’t been done, and he’d ended up taking the fall for her.

“I wanted to say I was sorry, and explain about earlier and why I was having trouble concentrating, and didn’t get the work to you on time.”

Right now, Mike could care less, he was having his own difficulties concentrating. Only 7 more hours left of the work week, he could do this. “It's ok, you don't have to explain.”

“Well then, at least that might help instead,” She nodded to the folder.

Mike opened it. “This is enough for me to write a motion for a subpoena,” he smiled up at her.

“I would have had it earlier for you too, but I had to copy some bullshit for Katrina.”

“Why didn't you tell her you were working for me?” That beta really drove Mike crazy. Katrina, the fifth-year associate, walked around as if she was swinging a cock between her legs, like an alpha.

“I told her exactly what I was doing for you.” Rachel looked pissed at having been bossed around by the other beta woman.

“And she didn't—Ah damn. She did the same thing to me. She pulls that fifth year crap and you have no way of going against it.”

“You have no idea,” Rachel sighed, looking away from him.

“Thanks Rachel, I really needed this.” He nodded to her.

***

Mike had only 6 hours left, and then he was home-free. He'd finished writing the motion against Hanley Folsum, and just had to let Harvey know and file it with the court. He leaned over his computer to press print, just as Harvey came charging through the bullpen.

“You got here just in time,” Mike called to him over his shoulder, “I'm getting us access.”

“Hanley Folsum?”

“Bingo, his personal records,” Mike raced to the printer.

“Well if you're talking about the July 29th reference in his _business_ email to his _personal_ email, then you're too late.”

Mike felt a drop of sweat trickle down from his armpit; and he felt his face flush as the alpha neared. “What?”

“Katrina gave me the subpoena for that an hour ago,” Harvey rebuked him.

Mike felt his mouth drop open in shock and upset. Katrina had stolen the idea right out from under him and Rachel.

“I guess it's a good thing Jessica put her on the case, after all,” Harvey frowned at him and walked away.

He felt a pang deep in his gut. He had let his alpha down. Mike shook his head and turned to take in a shaky breath of the beta in the cubicle next to him. The soothing buttery scent of the other associate, typing away, helped calm his nerves.

Harvey was not his alpha, it was all just pheromones, Mike couldn't confuse their friendship with something more, he _knew_ that, why couldn't his body understand?

***

So of course, the most logical thing to do next was to get into a pissing contest with Katrina. He was feeling attacked, which made his inner omega raise on its hind legs and want to attack anyone who had dared to threaten what was his.

“When people steal from me, I take it personally.” Mike slammed the Folsum subpoena down on her desk.

“Are you subpoenaing me?” Katrina laughed in his face.

“You subverted Rachel from the work I had her doing, and then used my idea for yourself.” He felt his anger heat up, “And then you used it to get all the credit with... Harvey.” He had almost said alpha and that was not good. He tried to breathe slowly to calm himself down.

“I offered you a chance for us to work together at the beginning of this case,” Katrina snarled, showing off her teeth. Mike privately wondered if, even though betas couldn't smell omegas going into heat, or alphas going into rut, if they somehow unconsciously sensed the pheromones. “You didn't want to take it. Besides, this is a win for the team. Isn't that the most important thing? That we win this lawsuit for our firm.”

“You've always got an answer,” Mike turned away from her. He needed to get out of this office and cool down before he tried to take her head off with his fingernails.

“And you've always got an accusation!” She shouted at his back. “So listen to my more experienced advice you baby first year: either run to Harvey and tell him your tale of woe, or get back to work prepping for the Folsum case, like I am. Be a team player!”

Mike tried to walk calmly back to his cubicle, but his hands were shaking.

***

His brain felt like mush, so the only thing he could think to do was go to Rachel and see if he couldn't bounce some ideas off her. If she thought they sounded alright, they just might work.

He was really cutting it close. His clothes were starting to feel distinctly moist from sweat. He had at least 5 hours left of the work day before he could head out. Maybe his calculations were wrong, and he should have taken his suppressants for one more day before stopping them, to bring on his relief heat. He just really wanted to be done his heat before Monday came and he had to be back in. He didn’t want to smell like an omega just finished his heat when he came back to work, and he definitely didn't want Harvey turning up at his apartment to demand to know why he called in sick. Harvey would find out the truth about Mike through just one whiff. At this rate, with the case ramping up his anxiety, he was going to go into heat hours sooner than anticipated.

At least he hadn't been on that private jet with Harvey and Scottie, when they’d gone off to the Parksville deposition, he thought bitterly. He might have gone into heat then and there. And then he would have been there to see Harvey and Scottie getting it on. But he wasn't jealous, Harvey could do what he wanted, with who he wanted.

He burst into Rachel’s office, trying to shake of his melancholy.

“I don't care what it takes, we need to get to that breakthrough on this case, before Katrina does,” Mike growled, pacing back and forth in Rachel's office. What he didn't add onto the end of that sentence was _'we need it so I can show her up to alpha'_. Rachel might be a beta, but if he'd said that, along with his slightly strange behavior the last couple days, she'd easily figure out his secret.

“But Mike, she already found it, and gave it to Missy Deitler to make copies. Jessica probably already has it by now.”

Mike paused and hung his head. He'd failed his alph—his boss. “Wait a minute,” a thought popped into his head, “She’s using Missy Deitler as her paralegal? Missy's going to take four coffee breaks before she gets it done.”

“She's going to take four coffee breaks before she finishes her coffee breaks,” Rachel scoffed.

“Which means it's probably in the copy machine right now.”

“Missy isn't just going to leave the copies in the machine, Mike.”

“No... But she's probably already scanned them. So all we would need is her code,” he lowered his voice, moving closer to Rachel.

She paused looking into his face. “Are you alright Mike? You look kind of... warm. And besides, you're talking about stealing someone's work. That’s not like you.”

“I just ran here from Katrina's office, it’s nothing.” He shook his head, “And we're talking about someone who lied to you, stole work from me, and made us both look like fools,” '_to my alpha_' his brain chanted. “Think about it, we're all on the same team, the faster it gets done, the better for everyone.”

She rolled her eyes, “You have an answer for everything.”

He clenched his jaw, that’s exactly what he’d said to Katrina. “Are you going to help me or not?”

Rachel sighed and began unbuttoning the top of her shirt. “Then move over.”

“What are you doing?” Mike frowned. He distantly remembered last week thinking she was one of the hottest people he'd ever seen in his life. Now, he felt like he was watching a brick wall show off some cleavage.

“Manningham in IT Account Services has had a crush on me since the day I got here, he would give me his mother's social security number if I asked for it,” She winked at him and walked out the door.

***

Mike approached Jessica's office just as Harvey made a joke about James Bond, and Jessica quipped back about Pussy Galore. Mike really wanted to join in the film banter, but his brain felt heavy. Rachel had done all the heavy lifting getting Missy's code and the copies of the incriminating email written by Hanley Folsum that would bring the might of their lawsuit down in full force. And he was glad Rachel had, because he was waning.

Instead of walking and making some smart remark like normally would have, he knocked and the two alphas both looked up at him, eyebrows arching, waiting for him to say something.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jessica asked, her expression flat.

“I have something that is gonna win us Parksville,” Mike went with lamely, handing over the copies. He wasn't feeling too great. Only a couple more hours and he could go back to his cool, dark apartment and suffer in peace.

“This is the key to everything,” Harvey said, looking up from the paper.

Mike felt a swell of pride bloom in his chest that often happened when Harvey showed him approval. Only this time it also made his omega-side calm down with self-satisfaction.

“Well then, we need to get Pussy Galore on a plane,” Jessica smiled at Harvey.

Mike recognized the dismissal and left, for once on this case not buzzing with anxiety.

***

“How'd it go?” Rachel asked, approaching him as he walked back to his desk.

“It's not over yet,” Mike sighed. “Harvey and Scottie are flying in a Folsum employee as we speak, to depose for the case.” If he wasn't feeling so brain dead from his oncoming heat, he might have been a bit offended not to be invited to the deposition. But right now he was glad. He had one hour left of the working day to finish up a few other small cases, and then he could finally head out.

“But you're out of the doghouse with Jessica?”

“Yeah, I'm out,” he sighed, and he was so glad to be out of the room from all of those pheromones. “But you never said how it went with Manningham.”

“And I never will,” Rachel giggled, and walked into her office where Katrina was sitting, waiting for them.

“If it isn't Bonny and Clyde.” Katrina said scathingly.

“What are you doing in my office?” Rachel said crossly.

“I didn't think you respected what's yours, or really, what's mine.” Katrina replied, flipping through papers piled on Rachel's desk.

“Your problem is not with her,” Mike stepped forward, “It's with me.”

“Fine by me,” she got up from Rachel's desk and crowed into his space. “You stole my discovery, and you know it!”

“I just used it to make a strategy for our team, so we could all win; isn't that why you did the same thing to me, in the first place?”

She scowled up at him. “I might have toed the line, but you jumped way over it.”

“I'm so sorry for that Katrina, but I was just taking your much more experienced, fifth-year advice on how to use other people's work,” he pushed back. Right now he just wanted to be slumped over his office chair, clearing his desk for the week, so he could head out.

“And what part of right and wrong is sleeping with the paralegals?” Katrina baited.

Mike could have almost laughed out loud. A week ago, he could have definitely imagined himself in that kind of relationship with Rachel, but right now he just wanted to lay down. And he suspected that within the next 6 hours, he'd be begging for his alpha to sleep with him. Not that he actually had an alpha. Oh who was he kidding, his omega had chosen an alpha that didn’t even think of him that way.

“Get the hell out of my office!” Rachel shouted. “Don’t ever talk about me like that again!”

“Fine,” Katrina smirked at Rachel, then turned to him. “You look all soggy and gross, by the way,” Katrina said archly to him and left.

***

As soon as Mike came through the door of his apartment, he crumpled onto his couch and threw his jacket, bag and shoes onto the floor, as far away as he could. He laid there, arm over his eyes, wanting to block out the streetlights shining through the window, and slowly fell into an uneasy sleep.

He wasn't sure how long he'd lain there, drifting uneasily on waves of sweat and rising body temperature, until a pounding knock brought his awareness back online.

Stumbling around his furniture, he opened his front door. He was so groggy that it took him a moment to realize that not only was Harvey standing on the other side of the door, but that Harvey was there while Mike was progressing into active heat, and that was a _very bad_ thing.

“Harvey, whu–”

Harvey took one look at Mike, gingerly sniffed the air and raised his eyebrow. “I think I'd better come in, don't you?”

Mike staggered back slightly, letting Harvey come in through the door.

The darkness of the room suddenly weighed heavily on Mike as Harvey took a seat on the couch Mike had just been napping on.

His expression shadowed incomprehensibly, Harvey turned to look at Mike where he stood by the still open door. “Are you gonna shut that or what?” When Mike only blinked at him, Harvey continued, softer: “I not going to hurt you, Mike. Shut the door and come sit down.”

Taking in a deep breath of the pheromones that now hung thick in the air, Mike closed the door and flicked on the overhead light before sitting on the couch, as far as he could from Harvey, making doubly sure they weren't touching.

“So, I guess I thought I knew all your dark secrets,” Harvey's dark eyes held a question in them that Mike couldn't decipher.

“Why are you here, Harvey?” Mike's voice shook with sleep and need.

“I just had a shitty conversation with Scottie about her lying to me with every breath she took, and I come here to see if you want to get a drink with me to help me forget, only to realize you're just like her.” His voice was bitter as he turned to stare down at his hands.

“Dear fucking hell,” Mike felt the words come out in almost a shout. Much too loud for how close Harvey was sitting to him. “Not everything is about you!”

Mike took a heaving breath, and immediately regretted it, when Harvey's musky scent filled his senses.

“Do you maybe understand how an omega like me might want to hide their presentation when no professional company in this city would hire an omega into a position higher than secretary?! Or maybe how 1 in 3 omega's experience sexual assault and harassment in their daily lives? Do you maybe understand why I don't tell anyone, when Trevor used my orientation as a threat to keep my mouth shut about his drug dealing, to his girlfriend? Or how the lawyer who came to see my grandmother after my parents died, used her being an omega to force her into a lower settlement? So fuck you Harvey, fuck you and your entitled alpha bullshit.”

Harvey stared across at Mike, his mouth open in surprise.

Mike realized he was panting like a racehorse after a run. He put his hands over his face and tried to calm down.

“I'm sorry Mike, I didn't mean—”

“I know, Harvey. I'm just tired of the bullshit I have to deal with, because I was born something considered lesser than alphas and betas.”

Mike felt Harvey's large hand rest on his shoulder gently. “I don't think your gender makes you any less of a person. I wish you'd felt comfortable enough with me to tell me, but I guess I’m coming to understand why you didn’t.”

“Thanks,” Mike whispered lowly. “You should probably leave though.”

“I see,” Harvey's voice was full of hurt. Mike knew Harvey must be thinking that Mike was judging him to be like the worst (and most average) kind of alpha: someone who would take advantage of an omega in heat, consent or no.

“It's not that,” Mike looked up at him, eyes shining, imploring him to understand. “It's just that I... well if you stay much longer, I'll probably start begging you to fuck me.”

“Oh,” Harvey's eyes lit up with surprise and interest. “I didn't realize you found me attractive,” he gave Mike a shy smile, but Mike knew Harvey was shamming him.

Mike snorted, “I have eyes don't I?”

“In that case,” Harvey's smile turned lecherous as the hand on Mike's shoulder slid seductively across his back to the other, so his whole arm was surrounding Mike. “I promise I won't hold it against you if you're not interested… but how would you like some company during your heat?”

Mike looked into Harvey's eyes, looking for any sign of hesitation. “And Monday when it's over?”

“It won't have any impact on our working relationship, I promise. And I won't tell anyone about your gender, Mike. I think you deserve as much of a chance to prove yourself, as all the alphas and betas at that company.”

While that wasn't exactly what he'd wanted to hear, it was enough to know that Harvey didn't feel any different about him because of his presentation. “Alright,” Mike smiled at him.

Harvey smirked, “Shall we take this into the bedroom then?”

***

Being with Harvey felt a bit like waking up on a roller coaster. You weren't quite sure how you got there, so all you could do was hang on and enjoy the ride.

“Do we need any extra protection?” Harvey breathed against Mike's lips, while rolling on a condom. That was another thing that surprised Mike that maybe shouldn't have. Harvey was an amazing kisser, and he kissed like it was the last kiss he’d every have: he was fully involved, he kissed in long frenzied bouts, and every move felt incredulously desperate. While that might have all been down to the heat pheromones, Mike didn't care much, because it was amazing and he felt like he'd never be able to fully catch his breath again.

Mike shook his head as Harvey's hands curled around his hips and yanked him down the mattress. “It's just a relief heat, oh fuck!” Mike called out as one of Harvey's fingers circled his hole and pushed inside. “N-not much of a chance of con-conceiving, Harvey!” Mike called out as another finger made its way inside.

The odds of a resulting pregnancy from a relief heat were 1 in 3, really not so high considering that a regular non-medication augmented heat had a 99% conception rate if said omega was knotted by a healthy alpha. But with a relief heat, a condom should be enough, he shouldn't need an after heat pill at least.

“I can't wait to be inside you,” Harvey whispered into his ear. “Can I?”

Mike nodded, and gripped Harvey's shoulders as Harvey guided his cock into Mike's hole. It slipped up inside him, nudging his prostate on the way, and sliding up against his open cervix, which remained closed outside of heat. “Ohhhhhh,” Mike cried.

There was honestly nothing like an alpha cock. Toys modelled after it just never did it justice. They were too hard or too soft, too cold and the knots didn’t expand right. They just couldn't duplicate the life-like quality of an alpha cock: the blood pumping through it to the beat of this alpha's heart, the warmth and fullness of it.

“Oh sweet justice,” Mike whispered to himself, sure that he was falling into madness, that was how good it felt.

“What did you say?” Harvey panted and gripped Mike's thighs for leverage, hoisting them up over the alpha's waist, and began to thrust.

Normally Mike didn't like things touching his cervix, it was one of the reasons he rarely used toys during relief heats, but the way the tip of Harvey's dick kissed the opening with each thrust, felt all manner of amazing.

The bed rocked back and forth with their movements.

“Gonna,” Harvey gasped after a few good solid minutes of thrusting, “Gonna knot.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike nodded back, his head rolling back with each pass, deep inside. “Do it, please.”

“Look at that,” Harvey murmured against Mike's shoulder and he pushed his knot inside and continued to make short micro thrusts into Mike, to help his knot expand. “We bypassed letting your heat take you into the begging stage, and you're still crying for my cock.”

“Fuck off,” Mike smacked Harvey on the shoulder before curling his fist between them to stoke himself off. He'd always enjoyed the full feeling of being knotted, and closed his eyes to enjoy the sensation.

“I believe I have,” Harvey snorted and Mike felt him poking around where they were joined.

“What are you doing,” Mike snapped, his eyes still closed. “Stop that.”

“Just making sure the condom didn't break. Sometimes they do when I'm knotting.”

Mike sighed and came against his stomach, letting the tension leak out of his body and his legs sliding down Harvey’s side. He let his weight sink back into the mattress. “How long do you usually knot?” The time spent waiting honestly differed alpha to alpha. Mike hated waiting long periods of time connected uncomfortably to someone else.

“Usually just over 15 minutes. How long do your heats last?” 15 minutes wasn't too bad. He'd been with shorter, but then there was that one alpha he'd been with, while quite young that had knotted him for almost an hour. His thighs had been so sore afterwards.

“Somewhere between 18 and 24 hours,” Mike replied. Some rare omegas had heats that lasted up to 72 hours; Mike couldn't even imagine how chaffed you'd be after wanting sex every few hours for 3 straight days, yikes.

“Not bad, sounds like we'll have some fun.”

***

They talked quietly about movies that were out in theatres until Harvey's knot went down enough for them to separate. Then they each took a side of the bed for a quick nap before they would want to go again.

The next few hours were spent sleeping, having sex and eating bad Chinese food that Harvey had put on his slightly wilted suit to go pick up from down the street.

But sometime around hour 14, Harvey didn't notice that when he slipped on a condom, in all his haste to get inside Mike (whose sweet little muscled ass was up in the air, begging to be fucked), he'd been a bit too eager and ripped the condom just a tiny bit. And he had no idea that when he knotted Mike, his cock right up against Mike's cervix, his sperm met an egg, coming down Mike's fallopian tubes.

And when Mike's heat ended just after the 17th hour, it wasn't because his heat was cut short due to his strict medication routine, but because that fertilized egg had implanted in the wall of Mike's uterus, and they were both about to become fathers in 9 short months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated, they help keep me motivated! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter killed me dead. I felt a bit sluggish just after I posted Chapter 2 last week, and then had a sleepless night Thursday and BAM, now I have a full-blown cold, which I think is turning into bronchitis. Again. :'( When I haven’t been sleeping or doing volunteer work this weekend, I was working on this, but So. Very. Slowly. So thanks to all who have been patiently waiting!
> 
> Disclaimer: All legal information in this fic is bullshit. I’ve tried my best from what I’ve learned from the show (and I know even that is a bit wishy-washy). But since the focus of this fic was always meant to be about the characters and their creation of a new tiny character, lol, I didn’t put hours of research into the legal process mentioned in cases, here. If you have any insight to offer in regards to that, please feel free to let me know in the comments.
> 
> Contains some dialogue directly from S2E05: Break Point and S3E01: The Arrangement.

** Present: Monday morning (30 days after Mike’s heat) **

Mike came in the next Monday morning, knowing that even though Jessica had saved him from being fired by Harvey, any friendship between Mike and Harvey had been damaged irreparably.

Jessica’s original threat to report him to the DA for practicing law without a license maybe could have been avoidable. Mike could have easily outmaneuvered her by calling her bluff and threatening to rat on her in as an accessory to his crime. But her threat to ruin Harvey’s career because they’d slept together in a moment of weakness, would have devastated Harvey. So instead he’d let Jessica win on the merger deal. At least this way they all came out with jobs.

And maybe their friendship would never be fully repaired, but Mike could try. He could – no, he _would_ find a way to make it up to Harvey.

So Mike stepped out of the elevator onto the 50th floor with confidence that morning, but as he started to walk towards his desk, he felt his breakfast start to come up the back of his throat, and dashed for the Men’s room, instead.

After he’d finished emptying his stomach, he flushed, put down the lid and sat down on the toilet. He leaned his head against the cool, metal partition with a sigh. He’d been throwing up, or at least feeling nauseated, every day for the best part of a week now. This was something he couldn’t ignore anymore. He probably needed to see a doctor… Maybe it was just really bad PMS? Nausea could be a symptom of PMS, right? After all, he always had his period 3 weeks after a relief heat – oh fuck. It had been just over four weeks since his relief heat. And he had spent that relief heat with an _alpha_.

Mike’s breathing sped up and his eyes felt like they were bulging out of there sockets. He couldn’t be… he couldn’t be!

He turned around, lifted the lid and vomited again into the toilet, not this time from the almost constant nausea, but from fear.

Damnit.

***

Mike sat down at his cubicle, trying to pretend like nothing was wrong. There were already some files on his desk from Louis via Norma for him to do, that were from the collective associate workload. He knew Louis must not have known that Mike wasn’t working for Harvey anymore, or the pile would have been even thicker.

After fishing a piece of gum out of his desk to help with his horrible vomit-scented breath, Mike began to sort through the pile, deciding what to do first. There was nothing he could do at the moment about either of his problems, so he might as well get some work done, and then maybe at lunch… Maybe at lunch he could find a pharmacy.

***

After purchasing two at home pregnancy tests at a nearby pharmacy, along with a box of saltines and a ginger ale (with the hope that they would help settle his nausea), he returned to the office and cowered in a stall of the men’s bathroom on the 49th floor, the floor that housed the paralegal and support staff. Yeah he was being a coward, but if the test said what he thought it was going to say, he didn’t want Louis, or Harold, or goodness forbid, Harvey to walk in on him probably having a panic attack.

After reading the directions on the box over twice (the first time he couldn’t understand one word, the tiny script had seemed like it was dancing before his eyes), he peed into the cup provided and then dipped both sticks in. He'd chosen to buy two because there was such thing as false results, right? He could only hope that one or both were negative, so he could go on with his life believing nothing had changed.

He knew he wasn't ready to be a parent, maybe he never would be, and that was ok, because he'd planned to live the rest of his life as a beta. After all, no beta male had ever become pregnant, so not having children would be much easier life to live.

He sat down on the toilet lid, he closed his eyes and sent a prayer to the universe for the test to show negative. He didn't want his life to change. He was finally _doing_ something with his life that he enjoyed, and it was something that could help people too!

His brief moment of solitude over, he opened his eyes and looked down at his watch and, pee sticks in hand, he waited. After what felt like forever, but was more like 4 minutes, he finally looked at them. Both blue. That meant… he scrambled for the box in the plastic bag on the floor.

Pregnant, the box told him.

Pregnant.

“Fuck.” He didn’t even think to hold it in.

What the hell was he going to do? If this was any other situation, he would go to the other parent, and have them help him make the decision, because right now he felt so lost as to where to even start.

But not only were he and Harvey on bad terms right now, he also knew exactly how Harvey felt about children.

Mike sat on the toilet and stared at those two little plastic sticks.

Double fuck.

** 56 days earlier: Friday evening (29 days before Mike's heat) **

Mike couldn’t believe it when Harvey had let Mike take on a case as lead. Sure, Harvey was dealing with some pretty serious stuff with the whole buried evidence lawsuit over _Coastal Motors_; but Mike felt like Harvey was placing a lot of trust in Mike to let him work the 17 year-old tennis star’s emancipation case, by himself. Harvey obviously had a relationship with sports recruiter who’d brought Marco Mendoza and his case to them, so he wouldn’t have given the case to just _anyone_. At least, Mike hoped not. He hoped this was Harvey giving him the opportunity to show his skills, not because he could care less about the emancipation case.

The case went quite well, although Mike hadn’t been able to mend the relationship between Marco the tennis prodigy and his father at first (Marco's father hadn’t wanted Marco to turn professional, but instead wanted him to stay home and finish high school). But in the end, Mike had been able to get what Marco what he wanted.

Marco had told Mike about an occasion when Marco had been sent to the hospital because of a punishment his father had given him after an argument between the two of them. And so Mike had gone into court and easily convinced the judge to agree to and sign the motion for Marco’s emancipation, on the basis of child endangerment.

The problem was, it wasn’t until the trial was over that Mike had realized the true reason Marco’s father had frozen on the stand, when asked about the alleged abuse. It was not because he’d hurt his son and felt guilty, but because he was shocked that his son would lie and say his father had hurt him, when in had reality it had been the sports recruiter who’d put Marco in the hospital.

Luckily, Mike was able to fix his own stupid mistake (and it had been incredibly stupid because he’d obviously not researched deeply enough into the hospitalization, and really that was just sloppy), and finally reunited Marco and his father.

So Mike had felt very smug about his victory. Yes he’d made a mistake, but he’d ended the case with both the client and firm happy with the result, and after a success on his very first solo case, he felt he had a right to feel smug. And he had, right up until he’d gotten back into the office, and gone in search of Harvey.

He’d originally hoped that the older alpha would pat him on the back for his victory (he really tried not to think about how much he seemed to crave attention from the man). But instead of a congratulations, when Mike stopped at Harvey’s office, he had only been met with Harvey and Donna’s empty desks. A quick search of the office led him to the firm’s front reception desk and the elevator bank, where Donna and Harvey were standing, exchanging sad, soulful looks with each other.

“What’s going on?” He whispered to Rachel, who’d stopped beside him.

“Jessica just fired Donna.”

Shit. Harvey and Donna were like two peas in a pod. A brother and sister with no blood bond. This was going to hit Harvey hard.

“The _Coastal Motors_ case?” He asked her quietly, as Donna got onto an elevator, holding a box of her belongings.

“Yeah. Donna destroyed the evidence. But I thought Harvey would fix Donna's mistake,” Rachel said tearfully. Rachel and Donna had always been thick as thieves, and Mike had grown incredibly fond of the fiery redhead, too. This change was going to be painful for all of them.

He’d been so caught up in his own case, that when he’d found Donna with the missing evidence the other day, he’d thought his warning to her to bring the evidence to Harvey had been clear. He never thought she would _destroy_ it.

To be fair, when he’d stepped out of the file room afterwards, he hadn’t put much thought into Harvey’s case. He’d heard down the associate grapevine that Harvey stood to lose his license if the lawsuit went to trial and their firm lost. But to Mike, Harvey was a super hero who could fight any odd and win any argument. Unfortunately, Mike had thought the mess would have been cleared up by the time he’d closed up Marco’s case. And maybe he wouldn’t have felt so blindsided by this turn of events if he’d been thinking of more than himself and his client.

Rachel walked off not long after the elevator took Donna far away from them. Maybe never to be seen again. He knew how difficult it was to remain friends with people who weren’t fully integrated into your personal life. Far too many work friends fell by the wayside.

He watched Harvey draw into himself and finally walk away, headed down to his corner office, and past Donna’s empty desk.

Following slowly behind, Mike stopped in Harvey’s doorway and took in the handsome alpha, who seemed lost in thought, staring out the large windows at the dark sky and bright, bustling city.

Mike felt almost like an irreverent heathen, as he stepped forward to break the silence, but he couldn’t let his mentor stew on this. It hadn’t been Harvey’s fault. Donna had made the mistake, and she was now paying for it. Mike tried not to think of the consequences he would face if anyone found out he was practicing law without a licence. But that was something he needed to think about another night. Right now, Harvey needed him.

“Let’s go for a drink,” Mike finally said, and stepped forward, hand hovering over Harvey’s shoulder. Harvey wasn’t exactly the touchy-feely kind of guy. And Mike couldn’t remember the last time they had touched, even accidentally, over the past 11 months of working together.

“Yeah,” Harvey had said brokenly, still turned away.

***

And that was how Mike had ended up on a Friday night in some dark pub, with his boss, drinking scotch like it was water. It wasn’t like either of them had a place to be tomorrow, and some things called for getting skunk drunk, especially if the reason for said drunkenness was your close friend and employee of ten years had just been fired.

“I could lose my license for her mistake,” Harvey said morosely, looking down into his glass.

“I heard,” Mike said back. “We can fix this Harvey, this case hasn’t even been opened in court yet.”

“The other senior partners are looking into settling this case. If they settle now, I’ll never practice law again.”

Mike felt his gut clench. If there was no Harvey, there was no Mike. Not at this firm. Not at any firm. “Then we’ll just have to show them it’s in their best interest not to settle,” Mike tried to smile at him. “I’ll start looking into it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday.”

“Not like you haven’t been insisting I come in every Saturday since you first hired me.” This time, Mike’s glibness did make Harvey smile.

But it wasn’t long before the smile faded. And for some reason, Mike’s gut clenched again at the sadness in Harvey’s dark eyes.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Harvey said before finishing his drink and signalling to the waitress for another scotch. “How did your case turn out?”

So Mike summarized how he’d done in court, that week. Harvey had looked especially pleased after hearing that Mike, after everything, had threatened the sports recruiter with a charge of intent to cause injury to a minor, if the man had ever bothered Marco or his father again.

“I’ve always hated that prick,” Harvey knocked back his drink and signaled for another.

Mike was just finishing his first when Harvey’s fourth came. “I thought he was your friend,” Mike smiled. “I was a bit worried that you’d be pissed about what I said to that sorry excuse for a bully. I didn’t realize it until later, but it was him that convinced Marco he’d be better off emancipated than finish his last year and a half of high school, and go pro with his father’s blessing.”

“Nah, he just brought me a couple of high-paying clients. I hope that dick sucks a lemon,” Harvey gave Mike this small, private smile that made Mike want to order Harvey a whole bottle of scotch, if it kept Harvey looking at him that way.

“But still,” Mike swirled his second glass of Macallan 18. “It kind of pissed me off that Marco was so easily swayed to think his father was wrong. I would have abided by whatever strict rules my father wanted to impose on me, if I could just see him again.” He looked wistfully at the wet ring his glass had made on the pockmarked table.

“Kids are all just little shits, who have no idea how good they have it. Just a waste of money, in my opinion. So many people have 'em so they won't feel so lonely. Want company? Get a dog, or a girlfriend. Or if you can’t get a girlfriend, get an escort,” Harvey chuckled at his own joke and finished the last of his glass.

Mike ordered two beers when the waitress walked by. Their tab was going to be huge, drinking this _couture_-ass whiskey, and he could tell the alcohol content was really starting to hit Harvey.

“You don’t really think that do you?”

“Huh?” Harvey frowned at him.

Mike had never heard Harvey say _‘huh’_ before. Interesting. Maybe he’d finally get that high-five he was always trying trick Harvey into giving him.

“That kids aren’t worth it.” Mike stated, and Harvey was quiet. “Ok, but you must have had some close calls over the years. With how many women you seem to take home.”

Harvey glared at him.

“What?” Mike smirked, “I just call it like I see it, manwhore.”

Harvey just huffed. “For your information Mike, having a healthy sex life is not being a _manwhore_.” Mike laughed and Harvey continued, “But no, I’ve never had some helpless omega or beta come begging to me for child support. And even if they did, I sure as hell wouldn’t give them anything except enough to get rid of it.”

Mike froze, beer bottle that the waitress had brought, raised to his mouth. The words _‘helpless omega’_ seemed to ring through his head far too loudly.

Mike tried to push away the phrase and drank down a huge gulp of his beer. But the mood at the table had shifted, and Harvey closed his eyes and leaned back against the booth’s padded seating.

Mike tried to pick a new conversation topic, namely how ridiculous Louis was (one of Harvey’s favorite topics), but the easy back and forth they’d had earlier never recovered; and Harvey was soon intoxicated enough that Mike felt comfortable in settling their bill with Harvey’s credit card, and helping Harvey into a cab headed home.

Mike watched the taillights of Harvey’s cab get further away until it had completely blended into New York traffic and sighed. The coolness of the late spring night sobered him a little, and he headed back to the firm to get his bicycle.

Despite the hurt Mike felt from Harvey’s comments about omegas (Harvey had always seemed respectful to known omegas before, and maybe that made the comment feel even more hurtful), but by Monday afternoon, their relationship had returned to its easy banter, and it was like everything had been forgotten.

***

Of course, like the superman Mike always thought him to be, it took only a couple weeks for Harvey to swoop in to save the day by discrediting the real mastermind behind the _Coastal Motors_ lawsuit against the firm, and bringing Donna back on as his assistant.

The only loss was that the firm ended up still paying a large settlement, despite Harvey being able to keep his license.

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Jessica made a bid for a merger between their firm and Darby’s only a couple weeks later. Word throughout the employees was that their firm had lost a lot of money on that lawsuit and was having difficulty with their finances. So in looking back, the merger between the client heavy _Pearson Hardman_, and the resources wealthy _Darby Int._ made far too much sense.

And to top matters off, only days after that, Mike spent his yearly relief heat with Harvey.

** Present: Monday evening (30 days after Mike’s heat) **

After the pregnancy test came out positive on his lunch break, the rest of the afternoon passed by in a haze. Mike had difficulty concentrating on any of his work, and mostly focused on editing briefs.

Since editing was easily the most mind-numbing task he had been assigned, the work helped drown out the constant soundtrack of _you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant_, looping in his brain. But by the time he’d finished only half of the work he’d hoped to accomplish when he’d started that morning, most of the other associates were clearing their workstations in preparation to go home for the evening.

Mike had a couple more pages left before he could in good conscience shut down for the day. Or else he wouldn't be able to claim to Louis that he'd gotten at least _some_ work done. So he buckled down to finish the editing as quickly as possible.

Forty-five minutes later, after finally finishing, he picked up the revised brief and walked down towards Louis’ office, to drop it at his secretary’s inbox for him to see the next day. Walking that way would of course take him in direct path of Harvey’s office, and right by Donna’s desk.

He steeled himself against any negative comments he might get from Donna as he walked down the hall and froze when he saw Harvey leaning against Donna’s cubicle, talking to her in a low voice.

Harvey eventually looked up and noticed Mike standing 20 feet down the hall. With a dark glare, the senior partner disappeared into his office.

Trying to swallow against what felt like a baseball caught in his throat, Mike started walking again, trying not to make eye contact with Donna as he passed.

“Not even going to say hello?” Donna said scornfully as he passed.

Mike froze. He took a deep breath before turning to face her. “Hello Donna, how are you?”

“How the fuck do you think I am, Mike?” Donna asked crossly, not even looking up at him from her computer.

Mike looked down at the stacks of work on Donna’s normally tidy desk. “I couldn’t help but notice there was no work from you or Harvey on my desk this morning. Maybe I could take some of Harvey’s casework, help lighten his work load at least?”

“You don’t seem to get it, Mike.” Donna shuffled through a file, “Harvey didn’t value you for your help on cases, he valued you for your loyalty, which he told you on Friday night after you shit the bed by choosing Jessica over him.”

“I know that. And I want to do something, _anything_ to get that back… So why don’t you tell me what he needs, and I’ll do it Donna.” He pleaded with her. “And no one knows better what he needs than you. So please, Donna, tell me what to do, I’ll work my ass off, I’ll do whatever he needs me to. Or if he’s not ready yet for my help, I’ll wait until he is: weeks, even months! Just whatever he needs. But if I can, let me help him on his work. Let me fix this mess with the merger, it’s the only way I know how to show him how sorry I am.”

“You want to know how to get Harvey’s forgiveness and loyalty back?” She scoffed, continuing to avoid his eyes. “Get in a time machine and undo what you did with Jessica. Oh shoot,” she finally looked up, anger and spite burning in her glare. “You can’t do that!”

Mike looked down at his shoes for a few silent moments. “I can’t undo what I did. But I still care about him.” He sighed. “You have to understand, Donna. Jessica, she threatened me with more than just losing my job. It goes further than either of you realize.”

She huffed out of breath of incredulity, and shook her head at him, as if shaking away his explanation. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Donna, please could you just separate our relationship from yours and his for one second?”

“Are you kidding me? Do you think I’m mad just because of him?” She shot at him with righteous fury. “You did this to me, too. And whether you appreciate it or not, I’ve had your back since the day that you got here.”

“Yes, you have. But what about last month?” Mike spat back, “When I had your back, you completely ignored me. I tried to help you, but instead you destroyed evidence from that case and that almost lost Harvey his license to practice law.”

“The difference is, I did what I did for him, not for me. And I didn’t get a pat on the back from Jessica.” She paused, “I got fired. You, you did it all for you.

“And Mike, I’ve _never_ seen him this hurt and angry. I was here for him when his father passed away, and he wasn’t even this upset then. I just really think there’s nothing you can do.” Her eyes met his again, and her face relaxed. She seemed almost _sorry_ that Harvey wasn’t going to forgive him, and yet resolutely sure that he wouldn’t.

Seeing her face suddenly devoid of all the spitfire anger she’d just been directing at him, it made him feel like he’d been dunked in an ice bath.

His eyes felt a bit itchy, but he clenched his fists, and held back his emotions. “Alright, I understand. Thank-you Ms. Paulson, please let me know if anything changes.” He said tightly, trying to sound as professional as possible. “Have a good night.”

He scampered off in as quick of a walk as he could. He wouldn’t let his emotions – no, his _hormones_ get the better of him. He would be strong and do whatever he needed to do to show Harvey how sorry he truly was.

Yesterday he’d briefly entertained the idea of resigning. Just getting away from _Pearson Hardman_… oh wait he guessed it was _Pearson Darby_ now. A deep pain resounded in his stomach at the thought. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t caved to Jessica’s threats, maybe the merger wouldn’t have even happened. 

Maybe there was a way he could put things right. When he’d come in this morning, he’d resolved to fixing the problem between him and Harvey, but maybe it wasn’t something to be fixed like that. So when he reached Louis’ office, he laid the brief in Norma’s inbox quickly and turned away.

Mike returned to his cubicle and opened up a blank letter form on his word processor. He erased the company address and byline, and wrote his own in.

He looked up, glancing around. Most of the desks in the bullpen were dark and empty, with only one other lonely associate working four spaces away from him. Mike turned back to his computer and quickly wrote up a vague letter of resignation.

Printing it, he hesitated in signing it. Ultimately, he ended up locking the letter up, unsigned, in his desk and picking up his things for the journey home. He would deal with it in the morning.

The shock of realizing he was pregnant and then confirming it earlier that day was wearing heavily on him, and he wanted nothing more than to just lie down and sleep.

He rode his bicycle back, slowly, to his apartment building. The usually 50 minute trip to Brooklyn was closer to 90 minutes, tonight. At least traffic had been relatively light, so his inattention hadn’t caused an accident.

It wasn’t until he took off his bike helmet and began climbing the stairs to his floor, that he realized he was shivering. It hadn’t even been raining, yet his collared shirt was soaked with a cold sweat under his armpits and down his back. He wondered how long he’d been shivering. It wasn't even that cold of a night, with summer just starting in New York.

His sleep that night was uneasy and turbulent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I cannot believe that Mike lives so far from the law firm and _bikes_ to work. I didn’t realize the two locations were so far away until I looked them up on google maps. Holy cow. A 50 minute commute on a bicycle, no thanks. The longest commute I’ve ever had was a 90 minute commute (one way), but in a car! I honestly cannot imagine biking for almost 2 hours every day, just for work. What about when you’re feeling sick? When it’s raining? I mean writers, does he really wear a suit while biking? Because that seems so incredibly impractical. Now I know why there’s quite a few h/c fics out there where Mike is injured while biking, cause that’s a _lot_ of NY traffic to fight day in and day out!
> 
> A/N 2: Weird note, but did anyone else notice (if they’ve seen Season 2 recently), that in S2E05 (the case mentioned in the flashback in this chapter), when Harvey is in his office, upset (over Donna’s mistake) and listening to Jazz, he tells Jessica to shut up and listen because his dad was playing in the song – but then the only musician playing in the song was a trumpet player?! And wasn’t Harvey’s dad a jazz saxophone player? Haha, sometimes I love this little inconsistencies in this show. XD


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple things I want to clear up before we get on with the fic. I guess I didn't make it as clear as I would have hoped. During the flashback in chapter 3, Donna loses her job. At the end of the flashback, Mike mentions that Harvey acts like superman (as Mike has always hero worshiped Harvey to some extent), and gets Donna her job back relatively quickly. The reason I wanted to include this flashback, and the fact that Donna looses her job and then gets it back, is to show not only Mike's hero worship, but that in reality, Harvey has a lot of power over the hirings and firings at _Pearson Hardman_. Though Jessica did save Mike's job, if Harvey had REALLY wanted Mike gone, he would have found a way to force Mike out. Since this story is written entirely from Mike's POV, I wanted to give you guys a little bit of insight to Harvey thoughts/actions. :) Harvey is mad, but despite what Donna believes, he can't stay mad at Mike forever. How Mike reacts though, is a completely different matter. And since Mike doesn't have time to sneakily help Harvey out on the Hessington Oil case (like he does in Season 2), because he's so in shock about the pregnancy, it takes Harvey a little longer to forgive him, than he did in the show.
> 
> Contains some dialogue taken directly from S3E01: _The Arrangement_ and S3E02: _I Want You to Want Me_.
> 
> **Trigger warnings for this chapter**: Shock, depression, vague thoughts/discussion about abortion.
> 
> On another note: Harvey has some very specific ideas about becoming a parent in the show. We're not really going to be hearing much from Harvey in the next couple chapters, so I thought I would leave you with a very undeniable bit of conversation from Harvey, that might help you understand why Mike feels so reluctant to tell Harvey about the baby:

_Harvey: Why didn't you tell me?_ (about the merger with Darby Int.)  
_Jessica: We needed their help.  
Harvey: You don't marry someone just because they knock you up._  
~S2E16: _War_ – 5:35

**Present**: Tuesday morning (31 days after Mike’s heat)

Mike walked into the office on Tuesday morning, much less self-assured than he'd been the day before. He felt a lot less sure that Harvey would forgive him now. He also wasn’t sure what he was going to do about his pregnancy. He’d done his best not to think about it since he'd found out in the bathroom stall yesterday at lunch. But he knew he had some important decisions to make very soon, and he didn’t even really know what those decisions were. Well he knew of them vaguely, of course. Would he keep the baby, would he not? What did either of those two choices mean for Mike? Right now he just wasn’t sure of anything.

He just wanted _someone_ to talk to. Harvey wasn't an option, neither was Donna, since she wasn’t really talking to him, it felt too personal to talk about with Rachel, Grammy was gone, and even Trevor wasn't an option anymore. After all, Trevor had been the one to tell Jessica that Mike wasn't a real lawyer. Although it was a relief to have Trevor gone, Mike really could have used his advice. But really, if Jessica hadn't had that leverage over Mike, he wouldn't even _be_ on the outs with Harvey. So even if Mike knew where Trevor even was, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let him back into his life.

The thing was, if things weren’t as bad as they were between Mike and Harvey, Mike would have been tempted to tell him everything, about this… this baby. Because this was big, and life changing, and hell if Mike knew where to even start. But Harvey was a hard man, he wouldn't listen to Mike with how things were now. And for some reason, Harvey seemed to hate children with a passion that Mike couldn't understand. So using the alpha as a sounding board was out.

Mike cupped his flat abdomen as he sat down at his desk. It was kind of shocking to admit, but there was a tiny baby inside him, and he was responsible for it. Responsible for a _life_.

His breath stuttered and he tried to get it back under control as he turned to his computer and logged on. He felt shameful about how much this seemed to be affecting him, and he really didn't want any of the other associates to clue in to his distress. The last thing he needed was to have a sobbing breakdown in the bullpen, surrounded by a dozen other baby lawyers, each of whom would use any advantage possible to scrape their way higher on the law firm food chain.

He felt so fucking alone.

Keeping his head down, he started to sort back through his pile of work for Louis, before he remembered the letter of resignation he'd written the night before. Setting aside the folders, he slowly unlocked his drawer and drew it out.

His hands shook as he imagined signing it and bringing it to Jessica. Instead he shook his head and locked the paper back up quickly. He took a few moments to calm his racing mind, before going back to the pile of folders.

Most of the rest of the day passed by in a haze of nausea and legalese.

**Present**: Wednesday morning (32 days after Mike's heat)

Lunch breaks at _Pearson Hardman_... errr, _Pearson Darby_ were generally pretty flexible. As long as you were not scheduled to be at court, in a client meeting, or helping a senior partner, Associates were allowed to have their hour of unpaid lunch break whenever they wanted in the work day. And since most associates just used their break broken up over the day as coffee breaks and worked through their lunch, Mike generally did too; but not today. Today, he had somewhere he needed to be.

During his lunch yesterday, he had phoned his OBGYN's office to schedule an appointment for today. He'd only met with this doctor once before, when he'd gotten a refill on his suppressants. At the time, he had needed a doctor much closer to the Manhattan law firm than downtown Brooklyn. Especially since days at the firm were long, and the managers didn’t really give days off for doctor appointments.

The doctor had seemed nice enough, but the original visit had been incredibly short and impersonal, so he hoped this appointment would go at least as well as that. And he still felt completely unsure about what he was going to do regarding this pregnancy, but he figured a doctor would at least walk him through all of his options.

So at 11 AM, Mike stood from his desk, eager to get moving so he could make his 11:30 appointment. He hoped the doctor wasn't running behind, because he'd probably be back a few minutes past his hour break as it was, with commute time.

“Devon,” Mike said to the associate in Harold’s old desk, across the aisle. “If Louis comes by looking for me, tell him I can be reached on my cell.”

Devon waved at Mike absently. He doubled that Devon would “remember”, as all the associates tended to stab each other in the back as often as possible. So before he left, Mike jotted down the message on a sticky note and stuck it to his computer. Moments like this made him miss the awkward and bumbling associate that used to sit in that desk. Harold might not be missed by many at this firm, but Mike would always miss him.

He doubted Louis would miss him though, as no new work had been stacked onto Mike’s desk since Monday, so Louis probably didn’t know Harvey had cut ties with him.

***

The 7 minute bike ride from the office to his OBGYN was a treat. The sky was clear, and there was a light breeze in the air, carrying the scents of various food vendors and restaurants through the city streets. Mike realized he felt better in that moment than he had all week. 

As luck would have it, although he was 15 minutes early for his appointment, the receptionist said the doctor’s previous appointment had fallen through, and the doctor would be able to see him immediately. He was also glad he’d been here once before, so he didn’t have to sit and do the 20 page new patient paperwork, all doctors seemed to require.

So he’d just sat down in the patient chair (giving the stirrups on the exam table an uncomfortable side eye), when the door opened and Doctor Robins stepped in.

“Mr. Ross,” the doctor gave him a small professional smile, sat down at the swivel chair next to the computer showing the clinics name and asking for log in credentials. “What can I do for you today?”

“Uh yeah,” Mike rubbed his hand through the back of his hair, embarrassed. “IthinkI’mpregnant.”

“I’m sorry?” The beta-scented woman tilted her head, her dark tight curls shifting against her face.

“I’m pregnant. Pretty sure I am, that is.”

“I see,” she said slowly, eyeing him a bit strangely. “Let’s pull up your chart, shall we?”

She turned her screen away and logged in, clicking through the clinics files on him.

“It says here that you’ve been on the hormonal heat suppressant Diaestusotriol for the last 9 years. It would have been called Estrousstop on the box. Is that correct?”

Mike nodded.

She typed something into her computer. “Has there been a change in how your medication was working for you?” She frowned, looking concerned.

“No,” he shook his head, “I took a relief heat about a month ago, and spent it with an alpha.”

She nodded in encouragement. “Did the two of you not use any contraceptives?”

“We used condoms,” Mike blushed.

“I see. It is true that condoms are not 100% effective. That's often why doctors advise the use of more than one contraceptive. So what made you begin to think you were pregnant then? I assume you kept taking Estrousstop after your relief heat?”

Mike nodded. “But then I started feeling nauseous and dizzy all the time. And then I started crying over every single little emotional upset. At first I thought it was PMS, but then I realized I hadn’t had a period at the right time, and it’s been almost 5 weeks since my relief heat.”

“And did you stop taking Estrousstop?” She asked, concerned.

“On Monday, after I realized I could be pregnant, and then took some over-the-counter pregnancy tests and they were positive.”

“More than one?” Mike nodded at her question and she continued, “It sounds like we have a lot to go through then.” She got up and opened one of the side cupboards to pull out a thin blue gown that tied in the front. “I’ll need you to take off your clothes, put on the gown and hop up on the exam time. While you’re doing that, I’m going to get some equipment. Do you need any help changing?” She asked politely.

Mike shook her head and began to undo his shirt as she left the room. Five minutes later, Mike was sitting on the table, feeling very chilly, when there was a knock on the door and the doctor entered with a nurse pushing a cart in, before closing the door behind her.

Dr. Robins pulled the cart up to the exam table and laid a hand briefly on his shoulder before reaching for a box of medical gloves. “So Mr. Ross, judging by some of the information you’ve given me, this visit wasn’t originally expected, so I’m going to walk you through all the things we’re going to go through during this visit. Is that ok?” She smiled down at him, carefully adjusting the latex gloves on her hands.

Mike nodded.

“So I’m going to take some bloodwork and do a pelvic exam.” Mike winced, but she carried on, “I need to take some swabs of your cervix and a pap smear. Then we’re going to talk about things you should avoid while pregnant, like raw fish and cats. We’re going to talk a bit about your family medical history, and finally, other possible options in case you do not want to carry this pregnancy to term.”

“Alright,” Mike watched quietly as she put a tourniquet around his arm and swabbed his inner forearm with an alcohol swab. “Is there any way we can skip the pelvic exam?” He asked jokingly.

“Sorry,” she smiled, her dark eyes dancing. “From your file it also sounds like you’ve never had a pap smear before, so it’s probably a good time for one, pregnancy or no.” Her smile faded a bit, “However, if you’re feeling uncomfortable about it, I’m happy to ask a nurse to be in the room with us, or we can reschedule this for another day. You’re welcome to bring someone with you that might make you more comfortable.”

“No, it’s alright,” Mike shook his head. In the end, it was good to get these things out of the way 

After the pelvic exam and Mike was left alone to change, the two settled back in their seats and continued to talk. Mike gave her as complete a family medical history as he could recall. It wasn’t as complete as he would have liked.

Mike wasn’t surprised when the doctor mentioned it might turn into a high-risk pregnancy. “You were on Estrousstop for a while there.” She admitted, “There are different studies that suggest this could effect a child. I’m happy to link them to you if you’d like.” He’d shaken his head. “It’s good that you’ve stopped while you have, and at this point, all we can do is wait and see. And keep your stress level as low as possible.” Mike had scoffed at that loudly. “Stressful job, huh?” She’d smiled.

“You’ve no idea,” Mike had sighed.

The subject of termination was difficult for Mike to even listen to. But Dr. Robins explained the process and possible side-effects clearly.

“How soon do I need to decide?” He asked shakily.

“Well, legally in the state of New York it depends on viability of the fetus, but generally under 24 weeks is considered the standard. As your physician, I recommend the earlier the better, if you chose to terminate.” She paused, searching his face for something. “There are other options as well, if you do not want to keep the child, but don’t want to consider termination. There really are a lot of other good options.”

Mike nodded, already dismissing her last statement. Mike had been an orphan himself. If he decided not to have the child, he wouldn’t put them through the pain and loneliness he’d suffered. And, if he did go through with the pregnancy, they would be the only family he’d have in this world. He would want to be a central role in their life.

“I’ll think about it.”

***

One thing Mike really hadn’t been too pleased about was when his doctor brought up limitations on physical exercise. “Your body is changing, and as it does, you’re going to need to slow down somewhat. You’re going to feel a lot more tired as you progress through the pregnancy, and you’ll need more sleep to cope as a result, as well as cutting down on some of your physical exercise.”

“How can I slow down, I need to bike to work every day. That’s how I make my commute!”

“Then maybe you’ll need to find an alternate form of transportation,” she said kindly. “You still have a bit of time, but at some point soon, you’re going to start noticing a change in your body. It's important to listen to what it tells you.”

***

Mike left the doctor with even more to think about than he had going in. But for some reason, the appointment made the pregnancy more real to him. It made the big decisions both harder, and yet easier.

Hearing about the process of abortion had kind of made his mind up for him. Even though the doctor had been professional and clinical about explaining the process, he knew in his heart of hearts that he couldn’t do that to a baby.

As it was, having this baby would mean he could finally be a part of a family again. They’d only be a family of two, true. But it would be _his_ family. And he’d never felt quite so alone when at least it had been him and Grammy. He’d always known he could count on her, and wanted her to count on him. When she’d passed, he’d felt so much more alone in this vast world of people going about their business. This baby could change that.

But he wanted to pretend for a few minutes longer that he didn’t know what he was going to do, even if he was lying to himself. Because admitting he was keeping this baby meant a lot of things in his life were about to change, in quite an extreme way.

He unlocked his bike and was soon on his way, hurrying back to _Pearson Darby_. The appointment had already taken him a lot longer than he’d realized, not that he expected anyone at the firm to have noticed.

**Present**: Thursday morning (33 days after Mike's heat)

Mike had spent most of the night thinking about how this pregnancy would change his life in the next few months.

One of the biggest things he had realized was that he couldn’t still see himself working at _Pearson Darby_ when this baby came. Every day he worked there was one more day added onto the lie that Harvey had originally told for him. He didn’t deserve the life that working there brought, and he didn’t want to start off his child’s life still living in that a lie. He knew he’d miss the mental stimulation, but he couldn’t justify being a fraud just for work that would stave off boredom.

And with Harvey and Donna not speaking to him, his social reasons for staying felt flimsy. His hot and cold relationship with Rachel probably wouldn’t survive his leaving the firm, but if he was honest, he couldn’t see how it could survive even if he did stay on. Their relationship hugely depended on their unspoken of attraction to one another, and he knew from experience of dating other betas, that as soon as Rachel found out he was an omega, their dynamic would never be the same again.

So that morning, Mike walked into _Pearson Darby_ with his confidence back, _because_ he’d decided he wasn’t going to stay. It also helped that he was feeling a lot less nauseated after taking an antacid with his prenatal vitamins, as suggested by the doctor, and had drunk some ginger tea before breakfast to help sooth his stomach. It was like everything was feeling a lot clearer.

Arriving at his desk he set his things aside, he unlocked his desk draw and drew out the letter of resignation. Before he could think too deeply about it, signed the bottom, and stood.

He knew he'd want a copy for his own personal records, so he trekked out of the bullpen to the copy room and paused before one of the giant copiers.

Footsteps approached from behind, and Mike turned to see Louis stride into the room, eyes deep in a multi-paged brief.

“Oh hey,” Mike tried to sound casual. He should have figured he’d encounter his coworkers in the copy room, he’d just been so intent on his task, now he felt awkward when facing someone he’d soon never see again. “Go ahead,” Mike gestured to the copier, taking a couple steps back.

Louis looked up from his briefs, “No, I can wait. You were here first.”

Mike frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Why are you being so polite?”

Louis scowled at him. “Come on, you have one stupid copy, you could have finished it already,” Louis took a step closer to Mike and tried to grab the paper clenched between his fingers. “Give it here.”

Mike’s eyes went wide and tried to move away to no avail.

Louis looked down at the snatched document, surprise flooding his features.

“Louis! I—”

“A letter of resignation?” Louis looked up at him with disappointment in his eyes. “Why?”

“It’s complicated,” Mike grabbed the letter back and turned away.

“Well, then simplify it for me, Mike.”

Mike paused and turned back. “Harvey,” Mike heaved a sigh and shrugged. “He’s the one who hired me, and now he wants nothing to do with me.”

“What are you talking about?” Louis looked genuinely confused, “I heard your work on the merger paperwork was being praised!”

“No,” Mike shook his head, “Jessica has been spreading that around the office to cover up for lawsuit we lost against Darby’s biggest client, right as the merger was finishing.” He paused. “If it was up to Harvey, I wouldn’t even have a cubicle in this firm, let alone praise for a deal I had nothing to do with.”

Louis shook his head not understanding, and leaned back on one of the wide desks in the room that was only used when the firm was working on huge mail outs, or cases with an excessive amount of evidence. “What happened?” He looked up at Mike.

“All that matters is,” Mike leaned back against a shelf, “I can’t fix it.”

Louis watched Mike’s expression for a moment before nodding. “You know, years ago, when we were in the bullpen, Harvey was like… Superman.”

Mike smiled, thinking about how well that moniker still fit Harvey.

“And then, one day Hardman just decided to knock him down a peg,” Louis smiled off into the distance, caught in his memory. “He gave Harvey his bullshit assignment; it had an undoable workload, this unbeatable case… So I took it as a chance to break down his walls, and offer my help. I just thought, no _hoped_ that this might be the chance for us to become…”

Mike always forgot that he wasn’t the only one to think of Harvey as some bigger-than-life figure; this unbeatable creature that played such an important part in their lives. He also wasn’t even the first to think so. Mike nodded, “become friends?”

“Yeah,” Louis whispered. “And when I offered him this help, he looked at me like, how _dare_ I?”

“I get it,” Mike said harshly to himself, “He’s alone. He doesn’t need any of us. He always has been alone, he always will be.”

“No Mike,” Louis disagreed. “He always _was_ alone. And then you came along,” Louis gave him a bittersweet smile. “Harvey isn’t Superman anymore, Mike. He’s Batman now.”

“What?” Mike felt confused.

“Batman needs his Robin.”

“So you think, I just need to remind him of that?” Mike asked, hope stirring in his belly.

Louis nodded, and stepped back up to the copier, preparing his brief.

Mike was quiet for a few moments before heading back to his desk, resignation letter still in hand.

***

Mike thought very hard about Louis’ words for the next few hours. After arguing with himself for far too long, he stood up from his office chair, ready to talk to Harvey. Not only was Louis right, but Harvey never gave Mike the chance to hear his side of the story before passing judgement in that bathroom. And that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Mike.

But then he sat down again. He just couldn’t forget that look of betrayal on Harvey’s face when Jessica had walked into the bathroom. He couldn’t forget Donna’s harsh words. For a moment, he hung his head. But then he took a deep breath and stood again. He needed to stand up for what he did. He needed to have the opportunity to explain herself.

When Donna was fired, after destroying evidence, Harvey let her say her piece, and even though Harvey had been on the verge of losing his license and whole way of life; and then afterwards, he still brought her back to the firm.

What Mike did couldn’t compare to that. Mike did what he did for both himself _and_ Harvey. He didn’t regret what he did, and Harvey should at least understand that, even if he must have wanted Mike to take the fall for him, on the sexual harassment charges. But if Jessica had brought those charges to life, the battle would have turned ugly and ruined both their lives.

Nodding to himself, he walked purposefully down the hall and stopped at Harvey’s open office door.

Inside, Harvey and Donna were standing close and speaking quietly to each other with smiles on their faces. But at Mike’s appearance at the door, they turned, and their smiles faded.

“Look, I know you don’t want to see me,” Mike started, his hands cold, his knees feeling shaky.

“And yet?” Harvey glared, his voice angry.

“I just want you to know that what Jessica threatened me with, it won’t ever work again. She’s shown her hand, and I promise I’ve done everything to distance myself from her threat and I made it clear to her that if she accused us of that again, it would be her word against mine.”

Harvey’s angry face took on a slight hint of confusion.

Mike blinked at a sudden realization. “Jessica didn’t tell you what she threatened me with, did she.”

“I know exactly how you sacrificed our friendship to save your job!” Harvey spat, slowly the room began to smell of dark and angry alpha pheromones. They were so strong, even Donna took a step back from Harvey.

“But that wasn’t all—”

“It never should have happened in the first place, anyways. Just get out of here Mike!” Harvey growled and turned away. “_Donna_ and I have work to do.”

Mike’s heart felt like it was beating out of his chest as he backed away from the door a couple paces, before finally turning and fleeing back to his desk.

***

The next hour barely registered for Mike. He knew he was shaking like a leaf, but nothing seemed to matter. He felt so… rejected. He’d been hurt before by Harvey’s words, but this… he felt hurt to his very core, his very… omega.

Shit.

If an omega felt wrongly rejected by their bonded alpha, they could experience symptoms of shock and uncontrollable emotional shifts. Distantly he tried to tell himself that Harvey wasn’t his alpha, he never had been. But he knew that prolonged exposure to an alpha’s scent, physical presence and sharing a heat could cause a pseudo bond. And the funniest part would be that Harvey wouldn’t experience the same pseudo bond, since Mike had been masking and neutralizing his scent since Harvey had first met him. Basically, besides the heat they’d shared, Harvey’s body and inner alpha had probably never even registered Mike as an omega.

As the past week shuffled through his head, Mike realized he’d been suffering from bond rejection in some form since that horrible scene in the bathroom, last week. Like when he’d nonsensically walked down 50 flights of stairs just to avoid _seeing_ Harvey, even from a distance. That was definitely a result from bond rejection. Or when it took him almost twice as long to get home, and he’d been freezing cold and covered in sweat: bond rejection. There’d been little moments throughout the whole week that could suddenly be explained.

Mike knew that eventually the symptoms would fade, but he would need to stay away from Harvey until they did. In the meantime though, he felt absolutely terrible. His body felt both freezing cold and tingling with a fiery pain, at the same time.

Mike shivered and rubbed his hands together, and realized his eyes were aching and tearing from staying open for so long. He’d been staring blankly at his blank computer screen. He took some long, hard blinks and got out of his chair to head to the breakroom. Some of the ways to combat bond rejection were to build a nest, expose himself to friendlier alpha’s scents and to keep warm. Since he couldn’t do anything about the first two right now, he went to the break room and made himself some herbal tea. Of all the times that he was trying to cut back on caffeine, it was when he was experiencing a bond rejection. Great. 

“Oh Mike, how did your talk with Harvey go?” Louis asked loudly from behind.

Mike startled, not having even heard Louis come in, and slopped some of his scalding tea all over his hands. Weirdly, it didn’t really hurt.

Mike looked down at his fingers, red splotches slowly appearing where the hot water had splashed.

“Mike?” Louis’ voice sounded concerned.

Mike let his fingers uncurl from where they had put the mug down on the counter and turned to look over at Louis.

“Mike, what’s wrong?” Louis’ thick eyebrows scrunched up over his eyes.

The quiet whimpering moan Mike let out sounded more like a hurt puppy than a man, and suddenly Mike couldn’t keep it in anymore. He felt himself start to quietly sob and he throw his arms around the other startled lawyer.

For a moment there was just a shocked sort of quiet, and then Louis’ arms came up around him.

“Shhhh, it’s ok. It’s ok, Mike.” Mike felt Louis’ hands run through his hair, almost as if he were petting him. “It’s ok. Here, let’s sit you down.”

Mike let himself be led over to the table and pushed into a chair, and then for a few seconds, Louis’ body heat disappeared, and Mike heard a door closing. Future Mike appreciated Louis’ sensitivity to the situation by closing the breakroom door (so that more people wouldn’t witness his breakdown), but right now he could have cared less.

A chair scooted close to Mike, and Louis plopped down in it, hand quietly patting Mike’s shaking shoulder.

“It’s ok, you’re ok.”

This lasted for only about a second before Mike leaned forward into Louis, hands gripping Louis’ suit jacket.

Mike wasn’t sure how long he cried, face smashed into Louis’ jacket; but when he came up for air, there was a noticeably wet spot near Louis’ shoulder, noticeably turning the light brown fabric dark in just that one spot.

“Oh gosh, Louis, I’ve ruined your suit.” He looked up at the beta male with teary eyes.

“Nah are you kidding,” Louis smirked his rare good guy smile. “Come on, these suits are waterproof because _I_ can’t stop crying into them.”

Mike gave a throaty, half-hearted chuckle and wiped his eyes. “Thanks Louis.” He sighed. “You’re being so nice, and I feel like such a damn fool.”

Louis awkwardly patted Mike’s shoulder, “It happens to all of us, sometimes.”

“Thanks, Louis. You know, I don’t care what kind of image you try to cultivate with the associates; you can be a really good guy.”

Mike stood up from the chair, determined to go to the men’s to wipe down his face and cool the burns on his hands. But as he moved to the door, he his head for a moment and was slightly startled by the shinning look in Louis’ eyes. Almost as if Mike had given him an idea.

***

“There’s a harsh reality I need to inform you of, and it’s a bitter pill to swallow,” Louis said in a choked voice.

Mike walked into the bullpen at the end of the day, as Louis stood on a chair in the middle of the room. He was speaking to the associates, as if he was some brave leader that deserved their loyalty, rather than a weasel-faced man that tried to make a lot of their work hours miserable to “test their worthiness of being a lawyer” as he put it.

“But the truth is, a mistake was made. A fatal mistake,” he continued, loudly.

But Mike realized that wasn’t how he saw Louis anymore, What he saw was a man who’d given him advice and comforted him when he’d broken down. Mike was glad to have been, in some ways, momentarily mentored by the man. Even though the letter of resignation burned a hole in Mike’s desk, he was glad to have known him.

“And as much as I hate to admit it, our time together is done,” Louis looked down on all the associates gathered throughout the room. “No more work. No more laughter,” he pointed at Jones, but Jones just looked confused from where he stood by his cubicle. “Remember?” Jones clearly didn’t.

Louis was silent for a moment before continuing on. “No more mentorship. And no more… um, anything,” He sighed sadly. “See I reached too high, and I fell. And my punishment is the end of my tenure as Head of the Associates.”

There was a moment of silence where the associates looked around at each other, not sure if to clap in happiness, or pretend to feel sorry for Louis.

“So,” Louis clapped to get their attention again. “I would like to leave you with the immortal sentiment of Robin Williams: There have been other associates before you, they believed they were destined for great things. Just like you. If you just listen, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. _Carpe Diem_. Seize the day, people. And make your legal lives extraordinary.”

“Oh Captain, my captain!” Mike chanted from the back of the group. He thought the Dead Poets Society quote from Louis was maybe a bit much, but this would be Louis’ last time he was able to address the associates, Mike could ignore the cheesiness this time.

Louis looked over at him, and for a brief moment, his eyes glowed with happiness, and then he was jumping down from the chair, and hurrying from the room clutching a tissue, sniffling.

As the associates began to scatter back to their assigned work, Mike noticed Rachel off to the side, smiling privately to herself as she watched Louis go.

“There was a time I would have been relieved to see that, you know. No more Louis,” he confided to her as he approached.

“The whole thing is just wrong,” Rachel shook her head. “Louis is a great mentor to the associates. They shouldn’t have taken it away from him to give it to one of the Darby lawyers.”

“This whole merger is wrong,” Mike looked down at the ground. The merger had turned all their lives and the firm completely upside-down.

“Yeah, and I know things have been hard on you since Harvey…” Rachel trailed off. “Does it seem like he’s thinking about taking you back?”

“No, not really.” Mike headed towards his cubicle, and Rachel followed behind, sitting on the edge of his desk, as he settled in his chair. He tried to ignore the way his heart leapt a little when Rachel said _his_ name.

“Well I may know something that will cheer you up.”

“What?” He looked up at her, intrigued. He was feeling a bit better than he had earlier that day, and the warm tea he’d been mainlining all day seemed to have helped a bit.

“When Jessica found out that Louis was losing the associates, she offered to let him have his very own singular associate, to have work on his cases and mentor.”

“Why should that make me feel better?” He frowned.

“Well a little redheaded birdy told me that afterwards, Louis went to Harvey’s office and asked him if you two were done for good, and if you were, would Harvey be ok if Louis asked you to work with him. And Harvey gave Louis his blessing.”

“So Harvey really isn’t interested in ever having me work as his associate again,” Mike said, trying to decide whether he felt happy or depressed about that fact. Maybe a mixture of both.

She sighed at him, exasperated. “You’re missing the most important point.”

“Oh?”

“Louis wants you to work for _him_, as his dedicated associate!”

If Mike had heard that a few weeks ago, he would have run begging and pleading to Harvey to take him back, just at the horror of the idea of working for Louis. But suddenly, that idea wasn’t seeming so bad. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to take the offer, even if Louis made him one.

After all, Mike had come in that morning with the intent to quit.

“Think about it,” Rachel smiled at him, patting him on the shoulder before striding off in the direction of her own office.

Mike, began to clear off his desk in preparation to go home. And he knew that he’d do little else for the rest of the day, than consider Louis’ possible offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This edit is rough, apologies for that. I’m going to go back over it tomorrow morning when my head isn’t so fuzzy from all the cold meds.
> 
> I wanted to be as accurate as I could in this chapter, so I did some research about the beginning of pregnancies, prenatal appointments, estrous cycles, oral contraceptives, drug naming conventions, abortion laws, etc. I feel as if anybody IRL saw my search history this week, they might really get the wrong idea about me, haha! I promise it’s just my fictional character that’s pregnant! :D
> 
> I hope you all liked what I’ve been calling the “Louis” chapter in my brain. Originally, the chapter was mainly going to feature Louis much more heavily, but honestly Mike’s fears ended up running away with the first part of the chapter, so more of the Louis part has been cut into the next chapter instead. And while Mike is a strong omega who can make his own decisions, and now isn’t quite so angsty about the baby itself (the doctor visit was a positive experience for him!), I am not going to promise it’s going to be all daisies from this point on. Unfortunately, there’s still drama-queen!Harvey to deal with, and let’s not forget that _no one_ at _Pearson Darby_ even KNOWS that Mike’s an omega at this point! (Excluding Harvey of course.)
> 
> Thanks to all kudos, and especially all the commenters! Ya’ll make me want to finish the next update and get it up! :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter has been a long time coming. Apologies. You know the phrase “when it rains, it pours”? Well, the end of September and October have been awful months for me. I was incredibly sick and off work for quite some time. When I came back to work, I was faced with some really difficult things (both at work and in my personal life and financially), and then 3 weeks ago, we had a death in the family. Which meant I also had to deal with family members coming home from faraway places to stay with us for the funeral, which was even more stress. And I thought at first I was dealing with it all, but I just haven’t been, which has made me incredibly unmotivated in both my writing and my art. Since everyone left, I’ve just been coming home from work every day and doing nothing but watch crap TV until I fall asleep every night. It’s been kind of harrowing. But I had a daydream about pregnant Mike a couple days ago, so I decided to try to do as much writing this weekend, as possible. :) I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Thanks for those of you who have been patient with me.
> 
> Firstly, in regards to the story: Just want you all to know, despite the merger being the cause for conflict between Mike and Harvey, I won’t be touching on the Ava Hessington case. It is happening in the background at the firm, but Mike won’t be dealing at all directly with it.
> 
> Secondly: There is a slight mention in this chapter about omega bodies and birth canals, lol. I keep it pretty vague so you can imagine their bodies look, however you want them to. I have an idea in my mind, but I’m open to multiple interpretations. I’m also open to discussion if you’d like to talk about it with me in the comments. AND I wanted to note, that despite all the mentions of birth, I do NOT plan on having a graphic birth scene. I’ve written them before, and I have nothing against that, I just know that turns a lot of people off, so as of right now, the birth (when we get there in a couple of chapters) will not be written in detail.
> 
> This chapter contains some dialogue taken directly from S3E02: _I Want You to Want Me_.

**Present**: Friday morning (34 days after Mike's heat)

At about quarter after 11, Mike was working on a case when Louis approached his cubicle.

“Mike, with me,” Louis said, not breaking his slow but purposeful stride.

Mike blinked up at the beta now walking away from him, before quickly saving the file he was working on, locking his computer and slamming the paper files into his desk.

A quick jog (which made him briefly feel like his breakfast was about to remake his acquaintance), helped him catch up to Louis.

“If this is about the Wilson files, I just got them this morning. I’m still going to need a couple more hours to finish their filing.”

Louis shook his head, and the two approached the elevator bank. “Don’t worry about that now. That’s not urgent,” he said, hitting the button to call the elevator.

Mike followed Louis into the opening elevator cautiously. “If this isn’t about the case you gave me, what’s this about?”  
Louis smiled at Mike mischievously, “You’ll see.”

***

Mike felt as if he were in heaven as he took another bite of the perfectly cooked steak in front of him. Generally, he didn’t eat a lot of red meat. Not because he didn’t like it, but because it was expensive, and he still lived on a tight budget, out of habit. But this amazing steak would be worth the possible bloating and indigestion later.

“This is the best steak I’ve ever had in my life,” he smiled dreamily at Louis, cutting off another piece.

“No, this is the best steak _you will_ ever have in your life,” Louis smirked at him across the table, watching him eat.  
It would have been creepy, except that was just how Louis was, and by now, his behavior didn’t even faze Mike.

“Louis, as much as I appreciate not having to eat my lunch from the hot dog stand, what are we doing here?”

“Can’t a man just take out another man in the middle of the day, for some steak and some wine and some cheesecake that’s gonna knock your socks off?” Louis lifted a forkful of cheesecake and tried to push it into Mike’s already full mouth.

Mike used his steak-laden fork to push the cheesecake away. “Uhhh, well some men could. But I think you and I both know that you are not one of those men, Louis.”

“True that,” Louis nodded his head. “Want some more wine?” Louis held up the bottle.

Mike shook his head. Normally, Mike would have jumped at the offer, but as it was with his _condition_, Mike had only taken a couple of minuscule sips throughout the meal, so as not to arouse suspicion from Louis. He was trying to avoid alcohol, now that he knew about the tiny baby growing inside him. He knew a lot of women and omegas felt fine having some wine during pregnancy, but he wanted to protect this child as much as he could. This child would already have a tough go in life, growing up without an alpha and in a fairly low social-economic bracket (since Mike would be quitting this well-paying job soon enough). So he was going to do his utmost best to make his body a safe space for this child.

“Well you _gotta_ try this cheesecake!” Louis lifted the fork again.

“No Louis, I’m not—” He was cut off as Louis rammed the fork into his mouth.

“You know what I mean?” Louis nodded vigorously at Mike, as Mike tried not to choke. “What do you think of that, amazing, huh?”  
Mike nodded, eyes wide in surprise.

“Hey Louis! How’s the steak?” A beta approached their table from behind and clapped his hands around Mike’s shoulders.  
Mike jumped in surprise, finally swallowing his large mouthful.

“Heaven!” Louis threw his hands up in awe.

“How about you,” the cheery beta in his 60’s asked over Mike’s shoulder, “Best steak you’ve ever had?”

“Uhhhh,” Mike looked at Louis for a clue as what to say. “Best steak I _will_ ever have?”

The balding beta leaned over his shoulder and laughed, shaking Mike’s shoulders in excitement. “Heh, you taught him well, Louis! What are you guys, brothers?”

Louis chuckled along with the man, and Mike felt like he’d been left out of some strange joke.

“Oh I’m just kidding,” exclaimed the excited beta, over Mike’s shoulder. “Louis here’s got a lovely sister named Ester and two wonderful parents. So who the hell are you?” The beta questioned, squeezing Mike’s shoulders.

“I am Mike Ross,” Mike replied, a little bit put off by the beta’s intensity. “Louis and I work together.”

“I wanted him to know who he was working for,” Louis explained.

“Oh,” the beta’s happy expression fell.

“And I wanted you to know, Peter, who’s working for you. Because Mike here, is the best steak _you’ve_ ever had.

“You want to know what you’re working for?” The beta let go of Mike so he could turn in his seat as the beta pointed to the kitchen, where the restaurant’s workers scurried back and forth. “That’s Tina, Gina and Adrian,” he pointed to the three people in turn. “They’ve been here 50 years between them. They are my family!”

Mike leaned back a little bit from the restaurateur’s passionate expression.

“That’s what you’re working for.”

“I—I understand,” Mike nodded to the man.

The man nodded once, sadly, and left them to their meal.

“I do not understand,” Mike said, turning back to Louis.

“It’s an eminent domain case.” Louis’ face was serious.

“Shit.”

“Final hearing is Tuesday. If we don’t win, this place, and all the other businesses on this street become a shopping center.”

“Then this place becomes a shopping center, Louis, because nobody wins against eminent domain cases.”

“But what if we did, Mike.”

“Then he would get to keep his restaurant,” Mike gestured behind him, at Peter, with his water glass.

“He would get to keep his dream.” Louis pursed his lips for a moment of silence. “And I would get to keep my dream.”

“And what is that?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.

“To rewrite the law. And the way to do that is to win an unwinnable case.”

“So what do you need me to do?” Mike took a deep drink from his water glass.

Louis smiled.

***

Mike spent the next few hours in deep research for Louis’ eminent domain case. Just after four, Mike gathered his materials and headed to the firm’s library for more research material on historic eminent domain cases.

“Louis,” Mike said in surprise as he entered the room, only to see the older beta leaning against a bookshelf, nose deep in a book full of old case files. “I thought you said you wanted to meet at 5:00, it’s not even 4:30!”

“I’ve been here since we ate. I’ve been researching every eminent domain case ever tried, starting with 1905.”

“Right, Clark v. Nash. But I thought you wanted me to be doing the research?”

“I did. But if I don’t do it too, how can I help you?” Louis turned back to his book.

Mike frowned in confusion. “You’re helping me?” Harvey had never done something like that in all the time they’d worked together.

“Yeah. I help you, help me. That’s how it works.”

Mike laughed to himself, quietly. “Help me, help you!”

“What?” Louis looked at him like he was crazy.

“Help me,” Mike pointed at himself, then back at Louis, “Help you—it’s from _Jerry Maguire_.”

“Jerry Mc-what?” Louis frowned.

“You…” Mike gaped at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Ok. If you’ve gone over every case file, then you know that the reason nobody wins is because there is no chink in the armor. Not against huge corporations like that, who promise the government millions in tax revenue.”

“Well then, we make a chink of our own.”

***

**Present**: Monday evening (37 days after Mike's heat)

Rachel stopped by Louis’ office on her way home, three nights later. She stopped by the table where Mike and Louis had camped out to do more research together. Just a few moments earlier, Louis had stepped out to get something. “How are things going with Louis?” She asked, looking down at him.

“Pretty well, actually. He’s been surprisingly pleasant. In fact, I’ve genuinely enjoyed being around him for this whole weekend, despite being cooped up in the office the whole time.”

And Mike _had_ been honestly surprised. So once Louis had convinced him to do some over time and come in to help on this case throughout the weekend, Mike had decided to hold off on resigning at least until the case was done. Mike felt a strange sort of kinship towards these people, being forced to leave their passion in favor of someone more powerful. Maybe it wasn’t the same situation that Mike found himself in, but Mike understood feeling. He understood feeling that you had to leave something you loved for something bigger. Only in Mike’s case, he knew deep down that this baby wasn’t only bigger, but that he would eventually love it more than any court case or filing he could work on.

“Did it ever occur to you, that he’s trying to recruit you?” Rachel asked him.

Mike frowned up at her. “I’m sure if Louis wants me to work as his dedicated associate, he could just ask Jessica. He doesn’t need to wine and dine me or anything. Besides, after what happened with Harvey, it will be easier if I don’t work specifically under one lawyer.” Plus he was going to be leaving the firm soon. Not that he planned to talk with Rachel about that before he gave his notice to Jessica.

Rachel smiled at him. “Maybe he wants to convince you that you would enjoy working one on one with him.”

Mike sighed and shook his head. “Can we, just once, assume that Louis doesn’t have an ulterior motive?”

“Hey!” Louis’ voice called as he came into view, pushing a cart ladened with different types of decadent looking deserts. “I got us some refreshments.”

Rachel smirked at Mike and headed out of the office, grabbing some strawberries from the cart as she walked by. “I will leave you two to your work.”

“So?” Louis smiled down at him enquiringly. “What would you like?” He gestured to the deserts in front of him.

“Louis, it’s the middle of the night. Where did you get all of this?”

“I’m the new Quartermaster for the firm, remember? That was why I lost my position as head of the associates.”

“Right,” Mike sighed. “Here, check out what I found,” Mike handed over a business periodical that had printed an article about updates on a certain building project in the state of New York.

Louis read the information, his mouth falling open. “Woah. No one has ever thought to come at it this way. Mike, this is outstanding!”

Mike smiled distractedly and nodded before turning to the deserts. Over the past week since he’d seen his doctor, his nausea had gone down quite a bit after he began using some of her recommendations. He was still feeling a general queasiness throughout the morning and afternoon; but as the evening fell, slowly the nausea would fade away.

Only the last couple nights, after the nausea left, he would begin to feel incredibly ravenous. There was a full strawberry cheesecake on that cart, and if he wasn’t careful. Mike could easily see himself eating his way through the entire thing.

“Where’d you think to find this?” Louis asked, staring down at the article.

“I actually go the idea from a movie,” Mike smiled to himself.

“_Moneyball_!”

“Wait, you’ve seen _Moneyball_? I thought you hated sports.” Mike frowned.

“_Moneyball_ isn’t about sports—”

“It’s about math,” Mike smiled at him.

“Exactly.”

“There’s only one problem about using this in court,” Mike gestured to the magazine. “It’s outside the scope.”

“What if it weren’t?”

Mike rolled his eyes, “What if I could fly?”

“Well I can’t help you with that, but if we want to get it in the scope, we just have to get the other side to put it there for us.”

“How?”

“You’ll see,” Louis smirked.

Mike rolled his eyes again, it was ridiculous how often Louis ended conversations with that non-sequitur.

***

**Present**: Tuesday morning (38 days after Mike's heat)

Louis stood from his spot to smile up at the judge. “The first time I ever had steak, was at Peter’s… I mean, I’d had steak before, but I’d never _had_ steak before.”

Mike smiled from where he sat in the other spot at their counsel table. From where he was sitting, he could see where the prosecuting lawyer for the other company was sitting at his own table, rolling his eyes at Louis’ little speech. Somehow, Louis was baiting the other lawyer into exactly where he wanted him.

Seeing Louis and Harvey around each other, it was sometimes easy to forget that Louis was actually an amazing lawyer in his own right. Harvey would always be the best, but Louis was still pretty damn good in his own right. And moments like this made Mike really see Louis for what he was: a Harvard educated lawyer who made his firm millions of dollars every year.

“But that’s not why I’m here today,” Louis continued addressing the judge. “You see, halfway through the meal, Peter came over to my table and asked how I liked it. He wanted to know because he cared. He cared about me.

“I don’t make friends very easily,” Louis said in a sort of confessional way. “But the second I set foot in Peter’s Steakhouse, I had made a friend for life. And that is how Peter treats every single person who walks through his door.

“So I don’t care what they say, Your Honor, this is not a public benefit, driving these people to close their doors.”

“Your Honor,” the prosecuting lawyer stood from his counsel table, a fake sincerity spread across his face. “I’m… I’m touched. It makes me want to run right over there, and get a steak.” He glanced over at Louis and smirked. “But as for the Supreme Court decision in Kelo, _public benefit_ is determined on a quantitative, not qualitative basis.”

Mike took a breath and stood, this was his moment to butt in, just as he’d discussed with Louis on the way to the courthouse that morning. “Well I’m glad you brought up Kelo, because we happen to have some quantitative evidence, right here.”

“Kelo was decided in 2005,” Louis chimed in.

“Eight years later, and still nothing has been built on this land,” Mike continued.

“No jobs created, no taxes collected, no money made.”

“Zero quantitative benefit. Just because they _say_ it will be better, doesn’t mean it actually will be.”

“Even if that were true,” broke in the sniveling prosecutor, “We have every right to do it! The State determines benefit, not the court. And until such time as the law is changed, you have no authority to affect the State’s determination.”

“Uh, Your Honor,” Louis cut back, “You can establish authority today. Right here, right now.” 

The prosecutor laughed, “There’s no basis for that. You have no choice but to uphold the established practice of eminent domain.”

Judge Dauber looked back and forth between them in thought, before he finally spoke: “I’m afraid opposing counsel is right.”

Louis looked down at the table in disappointment, and Mike almost wanted to reach out and hug him, despite the decorum expected of counsel in a court of law.

“Demolition begins next week.” The judge ruled, banging his gavel.

Mike sighed and sat down with Louis in their respective chairs. “I just remembered something about _Moneyball_… The A’s never actually won the world series.”

Louis was quiet for a moment, taking a drink from his glass of water, before starting to gather up his notes on the counsel table.

“I’m sorry Louis.”

Louis shook his head, “Now’s not the time to be sorry.”

“What is it the time for?”

“Mud.” Louis replied, straight-faced and picked up his briefcase before hurrying down the aisle of the courtroom.

“What?” Mike said, confused, but Louis was already to the door.

Mike grabbed his own bag and rushed to follow after the other lawyer.

***

Louis was quiet as they took a cab to Louis’ favorite gentleman’s spa. Mike was honestly a bit worried about what that might be a euphemism for, but the reception and listed services put him a bit more at ease.

Louis spoke quietly with the receptionist before they came to some kind of agreement and grabbed Mike’s arm to lead him down the hall to a changing room.

“Put all your things in a locker,” Louis said, handing him a towel. “I’ll meet you in there. Through that hall, third door on the left,” he motioned.

“Okay…” Mike said, taking the towel in confusion. He didn’t have any swim trunks, so he hoped he wasn’t about to be expected to get into some hot tub with a bunch of naked men. The last thing he needed was for all of his scent neutralizer to wash off and all of the betas and alphas in this club to realize he was a pregnant omega. To be fair, his pregnancy was still early days, so he might not scent as a pregnant omega yet, but he still didn’t want _Louis_ of all people to find out he was an omega.

Maybe they were getting massages? Mike could do with a massage. He might not be showing yet, but his pelvis region was beginning to ache during the day. He heard that was pretty common, your body beginning to stretch to make room for his growing uterus and eventual birth.

Mike cautiously went into one of the stalls and stripped down to his boxers, wrapping his towel around his waist, before locking away all his effects.

He opened the door Louis had indicated and walked into a scene he never thought he’d see.

Louis was lying, topless, in a large bath filled with very smooth looking mud. The mud reached just under his nipples, obscuring the rest of his body.

“Get in.”

“Nah, I think I’m good,” Mike replied uncomfortably, crossing his arms over his stomach.

“Mike,” Louis said soothingly, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just good clean mud.”

Mike felt his eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Is this about the fact that I’m in the nude?”

“Oh gosh,” Mike cringed, “Well I kind of wished you hadn’t brought _that_ up.”

“I’m just saying, I know how the younger generation gets hung up on that stuff.” Louis said, his voice sounding as if he were being completely reasonable, when this was feeling very surreal for Mike. “But you don’t have to worry, because you have your own self-contained unit.”

“Ok, if I get in, will you stop saying words?” Mike pleaded.

Louis nodded and mimed zipping his fingers across his lips.

Mike took a deep breath and dropped off his towel.

“You know, if you go in with boxers, you’re not going to have them later.” Louis said matter-of-factly from his own _“self-contained unit”_. “You’re gonna have to go smokeless for the rest of the day.”

Mike shot Louis a shocked expression. He didn’t know what that meant, but he could definitely guess, and he really didn’t want to spend the rest of the day without any underwear. But, at the same time, he didn’t really want to bare all for Louis.

Not to toot his own horn, but Mike knew he was quite well-endowed for an omega male. But that was still _for an omega_, and they didn’t look exactly the same downstairs as a beta, anyways. Especially considering that an omega-male’s body had to have enough room to create the birth canal that only started to develop during the second trimester of a pregnancy.

“Well, I…” Mike looked down at his boxers, back up and Louis and sighed.

“I promise I won’t look,” Louis gave a satisfying wiggle in his mud and shut his eyes.

Taking a deep gulp, Mike turned so his back was to Louis, shimmied off his boxers, stepped backwards to the tub and kind of settled down into the mud as modestly as he could.

Once he was in, he looked over to Louis, his face red with embarrassment, expecting Louis to make some sort of acerbic comment about Mike’s modesty, only to find the older lawyer lying relaxed in the mud, eyes still closed in what looked like relaxation.

At least the mud should hide his gender a bit as he got out, and he could be quick with the towel. 

Satisfied, Mike leaned back in the mud, enjoying the way it seemed to enclose around him. It was also much warmer than he’d expected, almost like a thick warm hug.

Mike sighed again, this time in happiness, allowing himself to relax for the moment. He didn’t realize before how stiff he’d been holding himself today, nervous for many different reasons, both here and in court.

The next 20 minutes flew by. Mike felt the tension leak slowly out of all his muscles. It was stressful, pretending to be something you weren’t, on so many sides. And keeping in this huge secret too. He was kind of excited he was going to be a mother, but he was still scared. Other than Grammy, he hadn’t really had that many good role models in his life. What if he screwed this kid up?

Mike let his hand drift down to his stomach, rubbing his hand back and forth across the skin, letting the mud slide between his fingers. And what if something happened to Mike, like what happened to his parents? He didn’t want this child alone in the world. And maybe Harvey deserved to know he was going to be a father? Maybe he should tell Harvey.

Mike took a few deep breaths before promising himself that he would tell Harvey at the end of his notice. He knew it was cowardly to wait, but it wasn’t just the awkwardness of having to work around Harvey, or having the alpha (who didn’t want to have anything to do with him) know and see him every day. Right now he was trying to avoid the alpha, to minimize the pseudo bond rejection, and he didn’t want anything, like prolonged exposure to the alpha, make leaving the firm even harder.

Finally giving up on his thoughts, Mike spoke aloud. There was a conversation he needed to have with Louis, and it was long overdue.

“Louis.”

“Yeah,” the other lawyer answered lazily.

“This is the best damn mud I’ve ever had.” He sat up a little in his tub, the mudline slipping from below his pectorals to halfway down his abdomen. “Hey, I know why you picked me for this case.”

“I wouldn’t have picked you if you didn’t.” Louis didn’t move as he spoke, content to stay relaxed.

“If you wanted me to be your associate, why didn’t you just ask?”

“Because you would have said no,” Louis sighed.

“Louis, come on,” Mike said encouragingly.

“No, Mike,” Louis opened his eyes and looked over at Mike. “I know what people think of me. I know what you think of me… I knew you’d remember all the bad things about working with me. I just wanted to remind you of some of the good ones.”

“I remember all the good ones,” Mike chuckled, before growing serious. “But I also remember after those things, you going back to being the same Louis I met the first day of work. The Louis who fired someone right in front of my face, for the sole purpose of teaching me to be afraid of you.”

“You’re right,” Louis agreed quietly. “I remember you once said that my actions matter, and that those moments are not water under the bridge. You’ve changed me. You make me want to be a better man.”

Mike looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. “Wait… Are you saying I complete you? You have seen _Jerry Maguire_!”

“No, I’m quoting my cinema hero. The character of Melvin Udall, expertly portrayed by Jack Nicholson in _As Good As it Gets_.”

“Oh. Never saw it.”

“Oh, well then, you’re lucky.”

“Why is that?” Mike asked skeptically.

“Because you can still see it for the first time,” Louis said cheerfully. In fact, it was the most cheerful Mike had ever seen Louis. Maybe all he needed all those times he was a cranky jackass, was some good mud and the opportunity to wax poetic about Jack Nicholson.

Mike smiled back. “The first time…” Something about that make Mike think about the judge that presided over their case that morning. “That’s it! The first time!” He said excitedly to Louis.

“What?”

“The judge! You were making your argument about the first time. He wanted to rule in our favor, but he couldn’t.”

“I know. That’s why we needed him to rewrite the law.”

“No, we don’t! Because there’s already a provision in the law that works for us. It’s in section—”

“No, no, no, no!” Louis quickly stood up in his tub. “First of all, I cannot mix work with mudding, okay?!”

Mike stared at Louis, standing over him, covered in mud and shouting. Mike realized he was wrong about the mud hiding details, because he was seeing _alllll_ of Louis right now, and he really wished he wasn’t.

“Let’s hit the showers! We have work to do!” Louis got out of the tub, not bothering to grab his towel, trampling mud all over the clean tiled floor. “I can’t fucking wait to stick it to opposing counsel, and rub it in his big smug face.”

Once again Mike was left behind by a quickly moving Louis, and he found he really didn’t mind. At least he could get out of the tub without worrying about any prying eyes.

***

Mike had dressed in a cubicle while Louis had yelled down his phone, arranging an emergency hearing with the judge and opposing counsel. And within a couple of hours, the four of them were in the judge’s chambers, standing cross the desk from a rather exhausted looking judge.

“Ok, what is so important that we need to have an emergency hearing?” sighed Judge Dauber.

“Your Honor, we need to be heard before demolition starts,” Louis spoke quickly.

“What’s he gonna do now, tell us about his first demolition?” Opposing counsel scoffed.

“It was riveting. But this has nothing to do with that,” Louis spoke seriously.

“Your Honor,” Mike pipped in, before Louis could start calling the prosecutor names, “Based on the new zoning put through for their project, we’re simply asking for a revised evaluation of the property that they’re taking.”

The judge accepted the folder from Mike, quickly flipping through the information Mike had put together in the two hours between the club and the emergency meeting. “_100 million dollars_?”

“That valuation has no basis,” Opposing counsel said, looking upset.

“It has a mathematical basis,” Mike argued back.

“Specifically the future value of cash flow, as shown right there,” Louis motioned to the folder the judge was holding

“Bullshit, you’ve heard of voodoo economics. This is voodoo math!” The prosecutor shot back. “They’re making crazy assumptions to inflate their value.”

“Just like Kelo, but that didn’t seem to bother you when it was in your favor,” Louis replied calmly.

Opposing counsel shook his head, “Your Honor this is ludicrous! They’re only picking that number because they know it makes our project too expensive to be feasible.”

The judge looked with contemplation between the numbers in the folder back up to the two counsels.

“Well in the words of opposing counsel: even if that were true, we have every right to do it.” Mike reasoned, giving a cheeky side smile to his left, so only Louis and the other lawyer could see it.

***

Louis and Mike debriefed over the trip back to the office. Their discussion was coming to a close as they stepped off the elevator and Mike began to head for the break room. He could use a warm drink right about now, the alpha stink of Opposing counsel in that tiny room had felt a bit overwhelming. Meanwhile, Louis turned to head towards his office, pausing before they broke away from each other.

“Overall, I think we were a good team, Mike!” Louis smiled up at him. “Great job.”

“Thanks Louis,” Mike grinned, “You too!”

Mike stepped into the break room, only to be confronted by an upset looking Rachel. “Looks like you won,” she seemed to be trying her best to smile at him.

“Not yet. The judge is ruling tomorrow on his decision,” Mike touched her shoulder as he passed her for the mugs.

“Then what were you just celebrating?”

“Well, we were dead in the water, with this case, and now we have a fighting chance.” Mike told her, while preparing a cup of peppermint tea. He really missed being able to drink coffee all day long.

“I’m glad,” Rachel replied, her voice wobbling ever so slightly.

He looked up at her. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I just got into a fight with Donna.”

“About what?” Mike frowned, taking a sip of his tea. It definitely hadn’t steeped long enough, and the water was still on the edge of too hot, but it did make him feel a bit better, despite the burnt tongue.

“I went to tell her about you and Louis, and she just—”

“What do you mean you went to Donna about me and Louis?”

“I thought she could help you out.”

“What? Why?” Mike knew that Rachel was a good friend, but this felt a bit too much like meddling. Besides, hadn’t she been the one to encourage him to work with Louis in the first place?

“I thought if she knew she would go to Harvey and just put an end to all the drama going on around here.”

“First off, I’m actually enjoying working with Louis for a change. Secondly, someone telling Harvey what to do is only going to push him further away.”

“I didn’t tell him what to do, I went to Donna!” Rachel defended herself.

Mike was so ready to yell at her that he was a big enough boy to fight his own battles, but in his heart of hearts, he knew that was unfair to her. Instead he took a deep breath, smelling her sweet beta scent, and tried to calm down.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I know you had good intentions, Rachel, but if me and Harvey are ever going to make-up, it’s gotta be because he decides to on his own. That’s the only way this is ever going to work.”

In his own mind, he could admit he wasn’t sure _even if_ Harvey wanted Mike to come and work for him again, that Mike would want to. The whole pseudo broken bond was one thing, but Harvey had treated him like shit over something that wasn’t his fault. Something that he’d done his best to protect himself _and_ Harvey over.

Mike had never understood why he’d been the target of Harvey’s anger, when it had been Harvey and Jessica’s stupid fight over the merger that had caused this whole situation.

A moment of silence stretched between them before Rachel spoke, still looking upset. “I’m sorry Mike, I was just trying to help. I know how upset you were with the idea of being Louis’ dedicated associate.”

Mike tried to smile at her, telling himself to put Harvey out of his thoughts. “I know.” He wasn’t going to thank her for trying to butt into this situation, but he also was so mixed up about his position at the firm.

He knew that Louis was going to ask for his decision after the ruling, whether he wanted to be Louis’ associate or not. And frankly, the back and forth banter they’d shared over the past four days of working on this case had made him remember why he loved this job so much, despite not being able to work with Harvey.

Not to mention, he really needed to look at his finances. Having a baby was expensive, and even if he were to find another job, once he were to become visibly pregnant, whether he would be able to keep it was another matter entirely. There were too many instances of pregnant omegas being dismissed from their jobs for miscellaneous reasons that somehow hadn’t come up before they’d become pregnant, and he didn’t have an alpha to support him financially.

He picked up his cup of tea and nodded to Rachel before heading out towards his desk, where the locked drawer with his resignation letter still sat, waiting.

He had a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for the roughness, this definitely needs a beta. If anyone is willing, hit me up in the comments! Also, be prepared, the next chapter is about to have a few time skips to help get us further along in the plot. I’m so excited for Mike to start “feeling” his baby! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I just want to thank all of you for your awesome comments and support. <3 Honestly, this story has been through so many changes (in plot) in the last couple months, that I was kind of ready to give up on it. I tried really hard during Christmas break to fix the plot, and I hated it! So I had given up, and then I went and read all your sweet and thoughtful comments on chapter 5 and they both changed my mind and motivated me. :)
> 
> Again apologies for the roughness of edit. Hope all of you enjoy this chapter. I think I've finally gotten the most of the plot to a place I'm satisfied with.
> 
> P.s. I'm starting to keep track of time now in weeks, instead of days. Last chapter ended off when Mike was about 5 weeks pregnant. (He found out when he was a little over 4 weeks pregnant.)
> 
> P.p.s. I wanted to say that Mike talks a bit about daycare in this. I want ya'll to know that I don't have any negative views to working mothers, or people who send their kids to daycare. Mike is only saying that he wants as much time as possible with his little one, when he says he doesn't want to put them in daycare. :)

**Present**: Wednesday night (almost 6 weeks after conception)

A loud knock sounded on Mike's door that Wednesday night, when he wasn't expecting anyone. He opened the door to Louis standing in his doorway, holding onto the frame as if he was about to fall down from excitement.

“Louis, what–”

“We won,” Louis said, trying not to grin.

“We did?” Mike asked, not daring to get his hopes up.

“We did.”

Mike smiled at looked down at his feet, trying to contain his excitement.

“I came by to let you know, and because I just wanted to say one thing.”

Mike cocked any eyebrow, silently telling Louis to go ahead.

“You know, if Harvey had the power to become Mariano Rivera, he would. Because Harvey doesn't love the law.”

Mike wasn't sure if he agreed. He knew how much Harvey loved baseball, but seeing how much he suited being a lawyer, Mike couldn't see Harvey being a professional baseball player, even if he could.

“The law is just his vehicle for forcing his will on his opponents. He just uses it to win,” Louis continued. “You see Mike, that's not how I feel about the law, I love the law. And I'd never trade it for anything.”

“I love it too,” Mike said, because part of him really did love the rules, the complexities, using those guidelines to try and prove who was right. But then Mike felt a small twist in his gut at the thought of his fraud and how that seemed to say he did not love the law. “I also like winning,” he added.

Harvey had made Mike learn to love winning. The rush. The satisfaction. The gratitude from their clients.

Mike had spent most of his life feeling like he was a loser. From the early death of his parents, to living most of his growing up years in poverty, to bring kicked out of University for selling test answers, to being best friends to a wealthy and successful drug dealer, all the while struggling to make ends meet as a bike messenger. Harvey had changed all that. He'd taken this kid who was worth nothing, who was a loser, and he made that kid a winner.

Mike knew exactly what Louis had come here to ask Mike, and so much of him wanted to say no. What he wanted was to wait for Harvey to forgive him, despite the psuedo bond rejection. But then he thought of Harvey's face in the bathroom, and Donna's assurance that Harvey would probably never forgive him. He knew that if he wanted to stay at _Pearson Darby_, he'd probably have to take Louis' offer.

And that made him just want to hand in his resignation, instead. But he stayed silent and let Louis finish. He needed a bit more time to make a decision, either way.

“I know you like winning,” Louis smiled at him with a soft, bittersweet curve to his lips. “But you know what I think?”

Mike shook his head slowly.

“I think you're half Harvey, and you're half me.”

Mike frowned. While he admired and enjoyed Harvey's friendship, he wouldn't say he emulated the alpha all that much.

Though to be fair, the baby growing inside him _was_ half Harvey. He tried not to think of the baby while Louis stood only a couple feet away. Mike wanted so badly to reach down and touch his flat belly, to prove there was someone growing there. Instead he gripped the door so he give the whole game away to Louis. He didn't want to tell anyone before he at least told Harvey.

“You've had your time with Harvey. Now have your time with me, with _me_ as your mentor.”

Mike sighed. “I need a bit of time to think about it.”

Louis smiled, as if the battle was already won. “Let me know by the end of the week.”

***

**Present**: Friday afternoon (6 weeks after conception)

With the case with Louis was finished, and Mike couldn't stop thinking about the letter of resignation in his desk. But also, he couldn't stop thinking of Louis' offer to become his dedicated associate. Mike had spent the last two nights meticulously going over his own finances and morales.

If he started working for Louis, did he owe him honesty over his credentials? He knew deep in his heart that if he told Louis, the beta wouldn't be as charitable as Harvey or Jessica had been. The rights and responsibilities of being a lawyer and upholding the law were sunk deep into Louis. So Mike couldn't afford to tell Louis his secret if he said yes to Louis' offer. Mike couldn't afford to spend time in prison, especially with the little one on the way.

But also, while he did have a bit of money saved, (and even a bit more if he sold the condo apartment he'd bought for Grammy), he still would last maybe a year without having to find a new job. Maybe less.

But what if he or the baby had a medical emergency in the next year? If he stayed with _Pearson Darby_, he'd get to keep their extensive healthcare plan at least until he resigned. Maybe for longer if he could convince HR to give him Maternity leave. He was under no assumptions that they'd take him back afterwards, but it might give him a bit of a cushion.

To top it off, in his heart of hearts, he couldn't imagine having to pay for daycare and still be able to bring home a living wage. Especially since at that point, he wouldn't be making the money of a smart, Harvard educated, beta lawyer anymore.

Not that he really wanted to send his child to daycare at all. For the brief time that his parents were alive, his mother had always been a stay at home mother, and the memories he had of her taking him to the zoo or museums on his days off, of her taking care of him when he was sick, of her meeting him at the bus stop after school, of her teaching him to cook as they made dinner for his father, they were treasured. He wanted his child to have as much time with his little one as his own mother did, before she was taken away.

To top it all off, life was expensive in New York. Life was especially expensive for an uneducated, unemployed, unbonded pregnant omega.

So if he were to work for a few more months, and maybe convince the firm to give him Mat leave, and maybe also move out of New York, he might be able to spend the first few years of his baby's life raising and caring for them, and not having to worry about money.

He'd slowly realized over the past couple weeks that he would be willing to do anything for this baby. A baby he hadn't even met yet! And even if that meant lying for just a couple more months for some financial security, he'd do it.

Decision made, he stood from his desk and headed out of the associates bull pen and towards the partners offices. He just had to make absolutely sure there he had no other options, before he told Louis “yes”.

***

Mike knocked on Harvey's door.

Harvey had his back to the door and shuffling through some paperwork on his desk. At the knock, he took a quick glance over his shoulder at who it was, before turning away to ignore Mike.

“Harvey, can we talk?”

“I don't have time for this,” Harvey grunted, refusing to turn around.

“It's important. Please.” Mike pleaded. 

Harvey's silence was all that came back to him.

“Harvey, I get that you are pissed off at me, but eventually you're going to have to forgive me. Especially with...” Mike trailed off, and stuck his hands in his pockets to stop himself from rubbing his abdomen. He'd almost blurted it out, when he'd agreed with himself a week ago, he wouldn't tell Harvey until his time at this firm was done.

What was he even doing in this office? He could smell that deep alpha musk pouring off Harvey, and it just made him want to forget everything and lean in a scent the man. He swayed a little on his feet.

“Especially what,” Harvey gave a bitter laugh. “What, because we rolled together in the sheets once, you deserve my time? Well guess what, I don't give a fuck about any of my one-night stands afterwards. Or is it because we were friends? But you can't have been about to say that, because you pissed away our friendship at the smallest hint of blackmail.”

Mike was glad that Harvey's back was to him, so he wouldn't see the utter devastation that had to be apparent on his face right now. “So you're going to punish me by giving me to Louis?” Mike asked after clearing his throat. He was amazed his voice even worked. “Rachel told me that you gave Louis your blessing for him to take me as his associate.”

Mike wiped his damp eyes quickly as Harvey began to turn.

“You betrayed me, you don't get the luxury of me caring what happens to you at this point.” Harvey said without emotion, finally turning to face Mike.

“Well if you were hoping I'd be miserable, you failed. I actually like working for Louis! He treats me like I'm working with him, not for him.”

Harvey scoffed. “He won't once he finds out your true colors. You're nothing but a...”

“But a what?” Mike brought up his chin out of pure stubbornness. Half of him was screaming to stop fighting his alpha and present for him. The other half wanted to show Harvey he didn't need the alpha in his life.

“A _fraud_. Liar. Backstabber. Beta pretender. Pick one.”

Mike took a deep breath to steady himself. “Are you sure this is where you want to leave us, Harvey?” Mike asked, hurt and angry. “Because once this is done, it can’t be undone.”

“You know what, Mike, we’re done.” He shrugged and turned back away. “Congratulations on your promotion to work with Louis, I hope you two are happy together.”

“Harvey, I regret what I did. But I'm telling you now, you're going to regret this.” Mike said, his voice much quieter now.

“Maybe you didn't hear me. I said: you and I? We're done.”

Mike took one last sniff of Harvey's deep scent and walked away.

***

Twenty minutes later, after Mike had taken a bit of time to lick his wounds, He approached a different office.

Louis was on the phone but motioned him in, after Mike knocked on the glass office door.

Louis finished his call, hung up and spread his arms. “Well?”

Mike shifted nervously from where he stood. “You make me want to be a better man.”

Louis grinned and slapped his desk. “You watched _As Good As it Gets_!”

Mike smiled, “Yeah, I loved it!”

“Well,” Louis smiled with a hint of embarrassment, “You had me at hello.”

Mike's smile grew wider. “You watched _Jerry Maguire_?”

“Jerry did you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?” Louis spoke in a high falsetto voice, trying to imitate Ray's high childish voice.

“These are the A.B.C.'s of me, baby!” Mike quoted back.

“_Show me the money_!” They shouted in tandem.

Mike smiled as Louis put out his hand to seal their new working relationship with a handshake. As he shook Louis' hand, he kept smiling, even if his heart was still back in Harvey's office, breaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Things in this story are about to speed up, timeline wise, next chapter. It will also be first chapter without any dialogue from the show (hence why I've struggled with the plot), so I hope you all like it! I know this was a small chapter, but I'm about halfway through writing chapter 7 as well, so hopefully I can post it this weekend. :)
> 
> Also, I just wanted to note before anyone calls me out for making Harvey too mean, I took a lot of his and Mike's lines in their argument right from Suits Season 3, Episode 2: “I Want You to Want Me”. But Mike is right about one thing, Harvey is going to regret how he left things between them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Your comments have been absolutely divine! Honestly, they’ve kept me wanting to see this story to the end. So thank-you to all that have left a comment. Also, thanks for all your kind patience! Here comes some fun time skips.
> 
> Thank-you so so much to the amazing DrizzlesandFizzles for beta-ing this chapter. Her editing made this chapter about a million times better and allowed me to get the chapter up to much quicker (I usually sit with a chapter for a whole week to edit, but you were so quick!), so thank-you SO much!! <3

**Present**: 7 weeks after conception

The next week working for Louis was surprisingly alright. Louis worked him hard. But in a different way than Harvey ever did. Not that he wanted to constantly compare the two men.

Harvey was much more certain in his direction of a case after some time to think, and wasn't interested in anyone else's suggestions until his own ideas fell through.

However, Louis usually operated with a snap decision idea from the start, but was later open to outside suggestions if he was in a good mood. And Mike had to quickly learn that if Louis was in a bad mood, he needed to give the beta lawyer some space to let him get over whatever had made him so upset, or Mike would suffer the brunt of Louis' anger.

Their first working fight happened about a week after they'd started to work together.

“Research as much as you can about corporate defaults, and the devising of their assets, until we have to meet with the client this afternoon,” Louis demanded the next Thursday morning.

“But Louis, you are already an expert on financial bankruptcy. Wouldn't my time be better spent researching the client and their specific needs, so we can pair our information together?”

Louis scowled at him, “You'll do as I say, Mike, as I am the experienced lawyer in this situation. If we have a client that needs you to proof a brief or regurgitate memorized facts, then I'll be the one deferring to you.”

Mike winced and took a step back towards the glass door. “Of course.”

Mike felt a little raw with the thought that Louis might only value him for his photographic memory. Mike was more than that. Yes, a lot of his practical legal knowledge had been taught to him by Harvey, but Mike was good at using said knowledge to his advantage. And one of the areas he was good at was looking at a client’s need and assessing where their firm's skills would best suit the case.

So Mike returned to his cubicle, a little downtrodden, wondering if he really had done the right thing by staying on as Louis' associate.

But then at lunch, Louis' assistant Norma swung by with lunch for Mike, on Louis.

“It's his way of apologizing,” the elderly woman laughed, a twinkle in her cheerful, brown, bespectacled eyes.

“Why doesn't he just phone me and apologize? That's way easier and cheaper,” Mike asked, confused. He'd not had a lot of contact with Louis' assistant before, but if the humour on her face was any sign, she could prove to be a good ally in the future.

She put the fantastic smelling take-out container of Thai curry on Mike's desk and waved her hand dismissively. “That boy has yet to learn how to apologize. But, that comes with its perks. Why do you think I’ve put up with him for all these years? I rarely have to pay for my own lunch.”

Mike sat staring at the food as she walked away. He hoped it meant that Louis really did value Mike for more than his photographic memory.

***

**Present**: Two weeks later, Friday (9 weeks after conception)

Working with Louis did indeed have its perks. Mike found that Louis was much more free with physical affection than Harvey was. At first, it had driven Mike a little crazy how often Louis would find an excuse to walk by his desk to give him a high five or a pat on the shoulder.

(Then again, sometimes he seemed to come by just to yell at Mike for being incompetent. But that wasn't so bad, he'd started to get used to it. And he had learned over the last three weeks of working for Louis that sometimes it really was just Louis' own bad mood. It didn't hurt that, as a result, Mike was getting a healthy, delicious lunch, courtesy of Louis and Norma. Too often in the past he'd just gone without lunch at all.)

But the increased attention and physical affection, while it had taken some getting used to, was kind of nice.

Especially now that he and Rachel weren't speaking much anymore (although that was not through any fault of their own. It had just happened naturally since she was mostly working with Harvey and Mike was now working with Louis). Of course Donna and Harvey were not speaking to him either. And to be honest, Mike didn't really have any friends outside of work. This all meant that he didn't get much attention or physical affection from anyone else.

This affected him even more so with the hormonal mood changes he'd been experiencing the past few weeks. The attention Louis was giving Mike seemed to be a balm on his downtrodden omega soul.

But all the positive attention from Louis meant that sometimes the negative attention hurt him a lot more than it should. Especially with all those increased pregnancy hormones floating around in his body.

Just yesterday, Louis had come by his cubicle to scream at him for being too slow at filing a motion, and instead of being able to keep his emotions together and release them later in private, Mike had begun to softly weep.

Which meant that when Louis noticed, he paused mid-rant to blink in horror at Mike's tears, before turning away from Mike and hurrying away without another word.

The other baby lawyers had seemed more shocked at Louis leaving than Louis coming by to yell at Mike in the first place. So much so, that Mike was honestly ashamed at how many of them stopped to ask him if he was okay as the day wore on.

And while there may have been a couple of them who'd been sincere, Mike knew most of them would kill to be Louis' associate, as Mike had gotten a small raise and rise in rank by becoming Louis' associate. So Mike had tried to cheerfully cover his blunder by claiming his tearfulness was just “allergy issues”.

This meant that now there was a rumour going around the office that Mike was “sensitive”, “girlish” and “allergic to Louis' yelling”.

Of course this made Mike even more worried. It wouldn't take a lot for office gossip to go from Mike being girlish and sensitive, to him being branded an omega.

He could lose his job from that alone getting out. Not to mention that often when one secret got out, other secrets seemed to have a way of getting out too. He couldn't afford for anyone to find out that he did not have a law degree from Harvard, or indeed anywhere.

It didn't help that these days, even toilet paper commercials on T.V. made him cry. So he was going to need to be extra careful about not getting emotional while at work.

So for the next two weeks, Mike found himself being extra guarded around the office, trying to keep a close hold on his emotions. He was so guarded that just as he began to feel as if he had a handle on hiding his condition, something happened for that he wasn’t prepared for...

***

**Present**: Two and a half weeks later, Wednesday morning (11 and a half weeks after conception)

Mike was just finishing proofing some briefs for Louis before closing down for lunch and getting ready to go for his next prenatal appointment. He was just finishing his first trimester, and he would be going to see his doctor for a check up on both his health, the baby's health, and his very first ultrasound.

It was a bit ridiculous how excited he was to get to see his baby for the first time. Having seen other ultrasound images around the internet and on mommy/omega discussion boards, he knew the baby would have a weird alien appearance at this point in his pregnancy. But he was excited nonetheless.

So there he was, editing through a couple pages, with about 20 minutes left before he could take his lunch and leave for his appointment, when his phone rang and Norma asked him to come see Louis.

***

The firm was big enough that as long as you didn't work directly with anyone in the firm, you could mostly avoid them, if you tried hard enough.

As such, what little he did see of Harvey and Donna was from a distance. But generally he hadn't really come face to face with them in the past five weeks he'd been working for Louis.

In the case that Mike had to walk to Louis' office, the fastest way was to walk directly past _Harvey's_ office. And since he was hoping to get through whatever Louis wanted as soon as possible, Mike decided to walk past Harvey's office.

As he walked down the hallway he tried to keep his head up, not pausing to see if Harvey was sitting at his desk.

The glances he'd caught of Harvey from afar always made him want to go apologize and grovel to the upset alpha, but he knew that was a bad idea. As much as the distance hurt, he knew an encounter between them would most likely hurt even more. Not to mention that he still was combating a bit of bond rejection. It wasn't as bad now as it had been, but he really didn't want to give the rejection any excuse to grow worse.

Before everything had fallen apart, they'd had such a close friendship that now he really missed just talking to the alpha, as both his friend and mentor. And whenever a case or brief that Mike was working on with Louis went wrong, Mike immediately wanted to find Harvey and ask for his advice.

But anyone who had been mentored had to learn to stand on their two feet eventually! So maybe his independence had come quicker than he would have liked, but Mike was strong and he could get through this. At least he hoped he could.

It was these thoughts and his stubborn pride that helped him keep his head up as he passed by Harvey's office, not daring to look inside.

He could get over what Harvey had done, and move on with his life. He could soothe his inner omega, and do what he needed to be strong for this baby. And that didn't include cowering in front of an alpha. It didn't include letting Harvey see how much he'd hurt Mike.

And he kept telling himself that, until he saw Harvey walking down the hall from the opposite direction with Scottie close to the alpha's side. The sight of the two engrossed in a quiet, intimate conversation, hit Mike directly in the gut. They looked so comfortable with each other, so at ease and friendly.

Mike put his clenching hands in his pocket and kept his gaze straight ahead as he passed by the couple. The two older lawyers ignored him right back.

_Their ignorance was for the best anyways,_ Mike told himself. It felt like a lie.

***

As it turned out, Louis just wanted Mike to help analyze a contract one of their clients had received. And, unfortunately, when Louis went over contracts, he liked nitpicking every single line, trying to see where the opposing counsel (of the company their client wanted to deal with) was trying to screw them over.

“You could have just emailed this to me,” Mike complained, trying to check his watch surreptitiously.

“But then I wouldn’t have you here to bounce ideas off of.” Louis scowled, noticing Mike checking his watch. “Am I keeping you from something, Mike?”

Mike blushed, and looked shyly at Louis through his eyelashes. “I kind of have an appointment scheduled for over my lunch.”

“Well reschedule then. This is important.”

Mike sighed. He really didn't want to reschedule, he'd been on edge all week for the chance to finally see the baby. “I mean I would, but I've kind of been waiting for a while for this doctor's appointment.”

Louis froze and looked up from his copy of the proposed contract. “Everything ok?”

Mike stared at the beta, trying to think of what to say in order to not give away the game. “I hope so? But it would be nice to know either way.”

Louis frowned in thought, before making a shooing motion with his hand, “Fine, but I expect you back in this office in an hour to help me finish with this.”

Mike smiled, “Thanks Louis!”

***

The moment the ultrasound technician turned the screen to him so he could see the image of the tiny baby, was the most surreal moment Mike had ever experienced in his life. Just a couple months ago he would have never been able to picture himself in this moment, but right now he couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

It would have been, of course, nice to have a partner by his side to see the little bean shaped baby, but he could still feel his mouth stretched wide in a smile. The little bean was the most beautiful, funny-looking person he'd ever seen.

A small pit formed in Mike’s stomach when he thought how upset he would feel, if the mother of his child decided not to tell him that he was about to become a father; had decided he wasn’t allowed to ever experience this joy. So despite still feeling incredibly hurt by Harvey, Mike reaffirmed to himself that he would tell Harvey about the little bean before he left the firm.

“Everything looks really good,” the technician smiled at him from the monitor. “Your doctor will be in to review the results, but your baby looks to be developing right on schedule. Your tentative due date is probably around the last week of June.”

He knew that really wasn't that long away, but it kind of felt like it. Next week the firm would get a few days off for Christmas, and he'd officially be in his second trimester. He felt like he'd already been waiting for so long to see this little one, and he still had quite a ways to go.

But he was incredibly glad to hear that the little bean was healthy, despite the long wait.

***

When Mike returned to the office afterwards, Louis didn't ask him about his appointment, and Mike was kind of hoping that Louis had forgotten about the incident.

But Mike should have remembered that Louis' memory was long and inescapable: because then Friday happened.

***

That Friday, they won their second court case, and Mike was reminded of how much he enjoyed winning cases. It was still fun even if he was winning with _Louis_, almost as much fun as it had been winning with Harvey. This was only their second court case since Mike had come to work for Louis. That very first case being almost a month ago, when Louis had convinced Mike to join “Team Litt”.

Outside of work, Louis and Mike didn't fraternize at all. Unlike Harvey, Louis never asked Mike for a drink, or showed up at his apartment after work hours, and Mike did Louis the courtesy of doing the same. They kept their private lives separate from their office lives.

But that Friday, the excitement from their win was almost tangible, and Louis invited Mike for a celebratory dinner after work.

They went back to Peter's Steakhouse, and the owner Peter was absolutely delighted to see them. Mike hadn't had the chance to have a steak since they'd last been to Peter's and was absolutely salivating at the thought.

“Complimentary wine,” Peter smiled and set a glass of rich red wine in front of both Louis and Mike.

“Oh,” Mike blushed. “No thanks, I'm not drinking tonight.”

“I insist! It’s on the house!” Peter grinned at the two of them, before personally taking their dinner order.

For most of the meal, Louis and Mike chatted happily about the case they'd won, and the ridiculous faces the opposing counsel had made when they'd presented their opposing side for the judge.

But as the meal wore on, Mike noticed Louis shooting confused looks to Mike's dinner plate, and Mike couldn't figure out what he was staring at.

Finally, as if he couldn't stand talking about it anymore, Louis changed the subject: “Last time we came here--”

“That was another great win for Team Litt!” Mike raised his water glass in cheers.

The absent minded smile Louis shot Mike had him immediately worried about what Louis was about to say. Louis adored calling their partnership “Team Litt”.

“Yeah. But last time we were here, you hardly touched your wine.”

Mike frowned. “So? I knew I would be biking back to work afterwards.”

“And this time, you haven't touched it at all.”

“What are you getting at, Louis?”

Louis looked down at his plate, lost in thought. “You've seemed more sensitive lately. You cried when I shouted at you a couple weeks ago.”

“You were _shouting_ at me. I've still never gotten an apology for that, by the way.”

Louis shrugged him off absently. “I've gotten after you the same way many times before for little mistakes, and you've never reacted that way. And only a couple days after that, you got teary eyed when we were talking about a company going out of business. You didn't think I'd noticed at the time.” Louis continued, emboldened by Mike's silence, “I don't have much of a nose for scents, but I've heard some of the secretarial staff remark on your very clinical, neutral scent.”

“All betas have a neutral scent,” Mike shot back quietly, his hands shaking.

Louis looked up into Mike's eyes. “Not that neutral, Mike. Everyone has a bit of a scent. Except for those covering up their scent. I guess to most people it's not that noticeable, except to old omega secretaries who've smelled a lot of unique scents in the workplace, over the years. Yes, there are a few rare cases of betas that have a more sterile scent, but that's usually only the result of extreme medications or medical conditions.”

Louis' stare was intense. Mike felt glued to his seat, staring fearfully back at Louis, unable to move or look away.

“And then you went to the doctor earlier this week for some 'test results'. And you've been happier than I've seen you in a long time. The only time I've ever seen someone that happy was when my sister Ester found out she was pregnant with her first child.”

Louis continued to stare at Mike for a moment of silence before Mike was able to let out the breath he was holding and lick his lips nervously.

“What do you want me to say, Louis?”

“I want you to be truthful with me. You're not a beta, are you Mike?”

Mike looked down in embarrassment at his hands which were gripping the edge of the table so tightly that they were turning white. “No, I'm not.”

“I don't get it,” Louis frowned. “Why hide your presentation?”

Mike looked up at Louis, his eyes fierce with ashamed anger. “When was the last time you met an omega lawyer, Louis?”

Louis' thick eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “But Mike, our firm is run by an alpha female. And we have more females on staff than any other firm in New Yor—”

“Yeah, by an alpha female who threatened to out me if I didn’t sell Harvey out. What an outstanding example of a firm believing in diversity and treating omegas with fairness and respect.”

Mike felt his throat close. He shouldn't have said that. He knew that Louis was like a dog with a bone when he caught the scent of juicy information. If Louis inquired further into Jessica's threat and found out what Jessica had _really_ threatened Mike with, Mike wouldn't just lose his job, he would most definitely wind up in jail.

Louis looked shocked, “Jessica did what?”

Mike knew the only way to possibly get out of this with his secret safe was to divulge other information to Louis. So he quietly told Louis about the fight between Harvey, Jessica and Darby.

“So wait,” Louis held up his hand. “Harvey knew you were an omega. And she was going to out your gender designation to force your hand?”

Instead of answering honestly, Mike subverted his answer. “I told you that Jessica plays dirty, and she plays to win. She cares about winning just as much as Harvey does, she just isn't as open about that.” Mike paused to take a sip of his water before continuing. “But she got what she wanted. She got to finish her deal of merging the firm with Darby’s, and she made Harvey never want to work with me again.”

“Fine.” Louis waved his hand dismissively. “But I wasn't wrong about one thing, was I,” Louis stared at Mike's water glass. “You're not only an omega, but you're pregnant.”

Mike blanched.

Louis smiled, knowingly. “Does anyone else at the office know?”

Mike frowned and shook his head.

Louis' smile took on a slightly dark and self-satisfied twist. “Alright,” he seemed positively gleeful about knowing something no one else did. “So what are you going to do when it becomes obvious?”

Mike shrugged. “I probably won't be able to work at _Pearson Darby_ anymore.”

Louis went quiet for a while. Then he finished his wine before he spoke. “You never wanted to work with me, unless you knew it couldn’t last forever.”

Mike looked up at Louis in surprise. “What?! No, Louis, I really enjoy working with you!”

Louis scoffed.

“I know at first I was really reluctant, but I've really started to enjoy myself these last few weeks...” Mike paused, “And I love how much you love the law.” It was maybe a bit scary to always feel on tenterhooks about when Louis might find out what a fraud Mike was, but Louis actually did make him enjoy the nitty-gritty details of the law.

Just like Harvey made him enjoy winning. But with Harvey, he'd only enjoyed the details of the law as a way to win, it was different with Louis. Louis made him enjoy the journey, and Mike told him so. “I have actually enjoyed learning about how you approach cases, Louis. And although getting to learn your approach is different from what I'd previously experienced, I find I enjoy it just as much, in a different way.”

Mike's eyes felt a bit wet as he reached over to put his hand over Louis'. “I see your value, Louis.” It kind of hurt him a bit to see how low Louis thought of himself sometimes. He knew everyone had their insecurities, and maybe it was all the hormones, but he didn't like seeing Louis hurt over his own insecurities.

Louis looked up at him and smiled. It was maybe the sweetest smile he'd ever seen from the beta. “Thanks, Mike. And thanks for trusting me to know about... you know, everything.”

Mike slowly took his hand back. “Thanks for being someone I can trust,” he winked, before sliding his untouched glass of wine over. “And Louis, just because I can't enjoy it...”

Louis grinned mischievously and picked up the full glass, before signalling to the waiter to come take their dessert order.

And just like that, the moment was over, and all was right again with the world.

The dark feeling in Mike's gut felt a bit smaller for the moment. And it was kind of nice to know that someone else knew about the little bean.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Drizzles&Fizzles for the amazing beta'ing!!

**Present**: The next week (13 weeks after conception)

Christmas was an incredibly lonely affair for Mike that year. He'd mostly sat in his apartment going through finances and reading mommy blogs about what kind of furniture was essential when you had a brand new pup. Which took even further research. He'd never dreamed of needing something called a “diaper genie”, but according to all the moms on the forum, it was essential if you didn't want your house to constantly smell of baby poop. He'd definitely never thought of that before, but the idea of a constant stench did sound quite unpleasant.

He did have a few moments of deep mourning that his own mother and Grammy weren't around to answer his questions when he was faced with decisions like cloth or disposable diapers. He'd never really thought there was much of a difference between the two, but according to the forums, this was a make it or break it decision on how other mothers would judge you as a fit parent or not. And really there was so much conflicting information about that choice alone, it took hours to wade through it all.

And there was a lot more cutthroat name-calling on the mommy boards than he'd thought there would be. It really made him realize how unfair it was that omegas and beta women were commonly thought to be less mentally sharp than alphas and beta men, as most of these mothers would make killer courtroom lawyers, if their brilliant insults were anything to go by.

Once he felt like his head was sufficiently spinning with the amount of information he'd read about cribs and natural fibers, he sat down to have a Christmas dinner of one.

Christmas dinner consisted of turkey-themed microwave dinner. Which wasn't all that great, but to be honest, it was better than a couple years ago before he'd met Harvey, when he'd spent Christmas in a haze of drink and drugs.

Luckily, he really only had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off from the firm, before it was back to business as usual.

As the week passed by, and New Year's Eve got closer and closer, Mike felt a feeling of dread build up in his stomach.

He'd been invited to the firm's New Year's Eve party and was expected to make an appearance. But he honestly couldn't imagine it would be very fun. He didn't have any friends to really chat with: he still wasn't on speaking terms with Harvey (who he'd definitely have to see there) and he couldn't drink. It wouldn't be a very exciting way to ring the New Year in, but it was mandatory for work so he'd be going regardless.

So on December 30th, as he was packing up his bag at the end of the work day, he was almost glad that Norma came by to demand to know what he was wearing, and that Louis had offered him a ride to the party in his town car.

The older beta tsked when Mike described the suit he had chosen. “Rent a tux,” she demanded, handing him a business card. “This is the company Louis uses. Mention you were referred to by him and they'll make sure you get a good one.”

And with that, the little beta woman was rushing off to complete her next task.

Mike looked down at the card that he had in his hand and groaned.

***

The tiny beta Hebrew tailor that was fitting Mike with a pre-made tux seemed to be unable to talk except to make noises of disapproval as he circled Mike.

“You should have come over a month ago,” the little man gestured angrily. “I could have fit you with something beautiful. Now we'll have to do with this!”

Mike looked at the dark tux in the mirror. “I think it looks good.”

The man shook his head, “Fine if you want to look like a boring beta, but look at these shoulders of yours, your curving waist, I could have made all the alphas turn and admire your omega curves.”

Mike went pink and flustered. “I am a beta though!”

The man paused, took a step back and looked at him, while scratching his head. “Ah. I see. Oh little _hamud_. Well, I can work with this. I'm glad you told me,” the little man got a gleam in his eye and got to work with his needle and thread.

Mike came out of the shop confused, but with a tux fitted in a way the tiny tailor had enthusiastically told him would make him look like a “nice and boring beta”. So there was that at least.

***

The party the next night ended up being just as awkward and stiff had he'd worried it would. Mike spent most of the party with the same champagne glass in hand. He'd carefully emptied half of it into a potted plant, only minutes after he'd walked through the door, so that it looked like he'd had something to drink.

Then he was grabbed by the arm by Louis, and manhandled around the ballroom, being introduced to one boring client after another. At least Louis seemed to be having a good time, getting rather excited to show off “his associate” to all of their clients.

After about an hour and a half of that, he was finally released to find his own entertainment, and wandered the party aimlessly until he bumped into Rachel, almost literally.

“Watch it!” Rachel shouted, as their shoulders brushed awkwardly, and turned to face him. “Oh Mike, I didn't see you here,” she said more kindly. “Sorry.”

Mike smiled frailly. “It's good to see you, Rach. I feel like we haven't talked in forever.”

Rachel smiled wistfully back, “Yeah, I've missed our gossipy, late-night work chats.”

Mike tried to brighten his smile, “Well at least we both seem to be doing less all-nighters.”

Rachel scoffed, “Maybe you are, I still have a lot of late nights working for Harvey.”

Mike looked away at the mention of the alpha lawyer, which was the absolutely wrong thing to do.

Right at that moment, fashionably late, Harvey walked into the party, with a giggling Scottie hanging off his arm.

Mike felt his stomach sink slowly. He knew he really didn't have any reason to feel jealous over Harvey. After all, the alpha was never his, but something deep and primal inside Mike felt very rejected watching the father of his child cavorting around and exchanging scents with someone else.

“Ah,” Rachel said, sounding surprisingly disapproving, from his left. “I wondered when they'd arrive.”

The two of them watched Harvey and Scottie stop to chat amicably with Darby, for a few silent moments.

“You don't sound impressed that they showed up together,” Mike turned back to Rachel, turning his back on the sight.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Well you know the firm's stance on inter-office relationships, and they're not being subtle.

Mike frowned, “There's nothing in the employee code of conduct that discourages relationships between colleagues.” Mike knew because he could remember every line from back when he'd read it on his first day. And he'd gone back over the document in his mind, the weekend he and Harvey had been intimate. He wasn't too keen on coming into work on Monday only to lose his job because of his heat. Of course he'd only thought to do that after Harvey had left on Sunday morning. The document had said nothing damning about their actions.

“No, it's not in the code of conduct, it's more implied. Goodness knows how many workplace harassment seminars I've been to over the years.” She snorted into her glass of champagne, and took a long drink. “Do you know that because we almost...” She gestured between them. “Because I always thought there was something there,” her face was pink in embarrassment, but she continued, the alcohol obviously giving her courage. “But it felt like after that whole Folsom Foods discrimination case, everything between us kind of faded away?”

Mike didn't like the look of confusion on her face. He hadn't realized it earlier, but all of the flirting and sexual tension between them faded away after he'd spent his heat with Harvey. He'd worked another month with Harvey and Donna and Rachel, and he hadn't even realized that he'd stopped acting interested in Rachel during that time.

“Rachel,” Mike began quietly. “I'm sorry if I led you on...”

Rachel shook her head and looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “It's okay, Mike, you don't have to explain.”

“I want to,” he put his hand on her arm in comfort. “I didn't realize it at the time, but I was falling for someone. It never worked out, but I didn't mean to make you feel like I suddenly didn't like you. The feelings between us just sort of...”

“Faded away,” Rachel finished in a small voice and looked up at him. “I felt it too. I could never figure it out.”

Mike wondered if Rachel had subconsciously been able to sense the pheromones of Mike's pregnancy, or the chemistry between Harvey and Mike. Nothing would surprise him at this point, a beta's sense of smell was obviously more canny than society would like to believe.

Rachel looked a little relieved at the airing of that topic, but her body language spoke to how awkward she was feeling right now. She turned her head slowly from side to side, her eyes searching the crowd before her expression lit up.

“There's Donna,” she smiled, already dismissing the last few minutes from her mind. “I need to go say hello.” She paused and gave Mike a glance and a vacant smile, “I'll see you later, Mike.”

Mike nodded and watched her go, before looking around to see if there was someone else to talk to.

His eyes immediately caught on the couple across the room. Scottie was reaching up to whisper in Harvey's ear, and Harvey was leaning down, cupping her elbow to create intimacy between them, despite the party around them.

Mike looked down at his half champagne glass for a moment before setting it down on a nearby surface, turning and heading out of the room, not pausing to look back.

***

After retrieving his coat from the coat check in the lobby, Mike walked out the hotel where the party was being held, and onto the city streets.

This being New York City, and New Years Eve at that, the sidewalks were incredibly crowded with pedestrians, many of them intoxicated.

The streets may have been incredibly crowded but Mike had never felt more alone. Well, except when he'd first found out about his pregnancy.

At the thought of the little bean, his hand went down to his abdomen, and a small smile lit his face. Maybe he was mostly alone, but now he carried someone else around with him at all times.

“I hope it's nice and comfortable in there,” he whispered softly into the chilly air, his breath curling up in white wisps. “I'm trying to do my best to be a good place for you to grow.”

For blocks, he just walked, taking comfort in the loud, lively living going on around him. Walking quickly until he finally reached the Williamsburg bridge pedestrian path, and his steps slowed until he'd made it out a fair way before stopping and leaning against the metal guardrail, looking out over the Hudson into the black waters. The city sparkled brightly from both sides of the river, and traffic whizzed loudly behind him on the bridge.

He'd done a lot of thinking since he'd seen the little bean on the ultrasound. A lot. And a lot of bookkeeping too. And he knew he just couldn't afford to have this baby and live in New York.

“I've always loved this city,” he whispered again, as if the unborn child inside him was listening, “I was born here, raised here. Other than a couple trips to Martha's Vineyard and New Jersey before my parents died, I've never really been out of the state.” But there was one thing that was very clear to Mike. “I love you,” he smiled into the air. “More than I love New York. And once I stop working, there's really nothing holding me here. No friends, no family, no childhood home; just you. And I want to be the best parent I can for you.”

“All week,” he continued, “I've been scared at the thought of leaving. It's the only home I know, and well, your father is here.” He paused and stared down into the dark water. “But he doesn't want us, and I need to let go of him. Of the lifestyle I wanted for so long, the lifestyle he represents.”

He brushed his hand down his suit, the hollow of his abdomen had gotten more and more firm over the last few weeks, and it definitely wasn't from sit-ups. But it still wasn't really much more than a tiny mosquito bite. But it was enough for Mike; enough to know the little bean really was there.

“I want you to know that I'm leaving for you. But that I'm not ever going to hold leaving New York against you... For so many years, I blamed Trevor for the bad things that happened to me. I felt like there was nothing I could do about my situation, because it was never really my fault. I loved Trevor like a brother, and I went along with a lot of the immoral things he did, but I'd always used him as the fall guy in my head. Somehow I was still the good guy because I thought I wouldn't have gotten in those situations if Trevor hadn't been there.

“And maybe that's true. But I still made my own decisions. I just never owned up to them. I let myself wallow and feel sorry for myself and the consequences of my actions. 

“I'm not going to do that anymore, because you need a mom who's going to do everything in his power to love and care for you.

“I love you,” Mike repeated, and smiled. This time he wasn't talking just to the baby, but to the mixed-up and stupid youth who'd made some mistakes, but deserved the chance to be a good parent to this baby.

He walked slowly back down the bridge, the way he'd come and caught a taxi back to his apartment.

He looked around at the cramped space. It was time to start looking at other places to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _hamud_: Hebrew for sweetheart
> 
> A/N: I really wanted to write more, but this just felt like such a natural ending spot. This chapter went way more self-reflective than I'd planned, too! I meant for Mike to decide to leave the party and wander over to watch The Ball, as it was dropping in Times Square, and decide to leave NYC as the New Year rang in. But Mike wanted to be even more mature and self-reflective than I'd even imagined! Don't you just love it when your characters takeover the chapter? :)
> 
> P.s. Thanks for all the lovely reviews ya'll have been leaving me. They've been keeping me so inspired, and made me want to write more and more! <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter honestly kicked my butt. It was one of those ones I had to really push myself to finish, so please be gentle with me. <3
> 
> In this chapter, there is a tiny bit of dialogue taken/referenced from S1E2: “Errors and Omissions”.
> 
> Special thanks to Drizzles&Fizzles for all the amazing beta work and comments! You rock!!
> 
> Lastly, small correction to chapter 8: Brooklyn Bridge changed to Williamsburg Bridge.

**Present**: The next month (4 months after conception)

For Mike, coming back into the office on January 2nd felt like walking into a different place.

The floor was quiet. Despite the early hour, _Pearson Darby_ would usually start to get quite busy by 7:30 am, and it was only a few minutes shy of 8:00 when Mike walked out of the elevator that morning.

Back when he'd been working for Harvey, he had tried to be in the office quite early, but since he'd started working for Louis, he was able to have a more normal work week.

For the last month he'd really gotten into the flow of working for Louis, and found that the beta lawyer didn't care so deeply about Mike being in the office at all hours, like Harvey had. Mike had especially noticed an easing up of Louis' intense work hours, since Mike had told him about the little bean, which was kind of bittersweet.

On one hand, he appreciated being able to go home at a reasonable hour (even if the hour was around 6 or 7 pm, which was not bad for a law firm), but at the same time he had never wanted to feel coddled because he was an omega. It was just another reason he'd hidden his gender presentation for so many years. Had he been younger, he would have complained loudly about being treated like he couldn't do the same work as everyone else just because he was an omega. But since he’d become pregnant, he was always so tired that he was happy to accept the special treatment.

And really, he had been just so _tired_ lately.

The second trimester, by all accounts from omegas and beta women on the internet, was supposed to be the easiest part of the pregnancy. No one had told Mike that he was going to end up suffering from some really bad bouts of insomnia in his second trimester.

Almost every night in the last couple weeks Mike had lain in bed, tossing and turning. He was even thinking of making an extra appointment to see his doctor, and Mike wasn't really one for going to see the doctor outside of necessity.

So even though he would rather detour to the work kitchen and get a cup of coffee right now, Mike made his way to his cubicle and got started on his work, despite his exhaustion.

The next week passed in a haze of paperwork, lethargy and sleeplessness.

***

It was the next week that really made Mike realize he had a problem.

The first clue was when he fell asleep on the subway on his way to work on Monday. He'd slept poorly all weekend, and all the sleeplessness was really catching up on him. He ended up missing his stop and woke up four stops later when someone sitting beside him jostled him as they headed for the train car door.

Brain fuzzy from the 30 minutes of sleep he'd just gotten, he was disoriented long enough for the car doors to close and the train to start forward to the next stop. When he realized how far he'd gone, he panicked just a bit and got up to wait by the door, so he could get off as soon as the subway stopped 77th Street.

Rather than trying to catch a train back and make himself even later for work, he grabbed a cab and made the 20 minutes ride back to the office.

All of that would have been fine, and Mike would have gotten on with his work day if his phone wasn't ringing loudly when he finally got to his cubicle that morning. Norma was on the other end of the call, telling him to get his butt down to the conference room where Louis was meeting with one of their clients.

Since Louis lost his tenure over the associate pool, most of his cases were financial based as Louis was extremely gifted with numbers. Luckily, so was Mike, or the work might have been a lot more difficult. And although the cases did not usually have the interesting human aspects that Harvey's had, they were interesting in their own right and generally not as time sensitive as Harvey's had been.

But when Louis' cases did involve meeting with emotional or angry clients, they felt ten times more exasperating than Harvey's had. And he felt a lot less urgency to fix everything immediately when their clients were short with them about the cases.

So the next two hours spent in the very warm conference room with the client yelling at them, were excruciatingly dull and awkward. Of course the whole while, had Louis glared daggers at Mike for having shown up late.

Fortunately, after the first hour, the very pink-faced, yelling client had calmed down enough for Louis and Mike to start soothing the irate man and show him how their firm was working to solve the payment discrepancies in his overseas contracts.

The now quiet talk over numbers and contracts, plus the warm room along with his lost sleep and lack of coffee, meant that Mike was having a hard time concentrating.

And as the client got up to leave, Mike jerked from where he'd started falling asleep in his chair.

Louis and Mike shook the client's hand as the man left.

And as the man faded out of view, Louis turned sharply to Mike. “What the _hell_ is goshdamn wrong with you, Mike?!”

“What?” Mike said in sleepy confusion.

Louis grabbed Mike's elbow harshly and forcefully dragged him out of the room and towards the Junior Partner's office.

Of course as the beta lawyer dragged Mike down the hall, they passed Scottie and Harvey standing close to each other, speaking quietly. The two senior lawyers paused to watch Louis and Mike pass, with narrowed eyes. And that really put an extra helping of humiliation on top of Louis dragging him through the firm's halls by the arm. When the beta reached his own office, he did his best to slam the glass door behind them in anger.

The beta lawyer shoved him gently to a chair and stood in front of his desk, arms crossed. “Well?” He asked sternly.

“Well what, Louis?” Mike countered petulantly. “What was _that_?” He shot back, rubbing his arm.

“You were late this morning, you almost fell asleep during our client meeting and _I_ had to smooth everything over with the client with no damn help from my associate, who should have known enough about this case to help quell our client’s doubts.”

Mike blushed and looked down at the floor.

Louis waited, staring Mike down in silence until Mike finally broke.

“I-I haven't been sleeping well lately, and I fell asleep on the subway this morning. I'm _sorry_, Louis. I didn't mean to leave you hanging in that meeting.” Mike truly was sorry too. The beta had done a lot for him after Harvey had let him go.

Louis sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “Is this because of...” Louis gestured at Mike's lower torso.

Mike's face turned even pinker and he shrugged.

“Well whatever it is, figure it out Mike. I can't have you coming into work or meetings like this. Clear your desk for the day. Anything urgent send to Norma and then take the afternoon off. I expect you to be in tomorrow early, and ready for work. We have a meeting with opposing counsel for the Rockwall case and I expect you at your best.”

With that, Louis turned away and began sorting through the messages on his desk.

Knowing he'd been dismissed and feeling pretty embarrassed, Mike left the room quickly, upset at himself that he'd let his insomnia get so bad that it was affecting his work. He'd never really had sleep issues before, at least not to this level. To be fair, when he couldn't sleep in the past, he'd just smoked a joint and let himself fall into that haze.

But that was no longer an option, Mike thought as he rubbed his tiny belly through his white dress shirt. He hadn't used since he'd promised Harvey he wouldn't, and he wouldn't do anything to hurt the baby now that they were here.

It was time to try something new.

So when he reached his cubicle, Mike avoided all his coworkers' eyes and picked up the phone.

***

After clearing his desk, Mike took a cab to his obgyn's office, who had so kindly squeezed him in for an appointment during her lunch break.

“What seems to be the problem, Mike?” His doctor sat down at the computer and quickly logged in to bring up his patient files.

“I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“It started just after the last time I saw you for the ultrasound, right after Christmas.”

She asked him some more detailed questions about the duration and conditions of the insomnia spells and then about his diet and daily schedule.

“Alright,” she nodded to his answers and typed some notes on his file. “Just one more question. I know this might be a delicate topic. But are you still with the alpha?”

This was the day for blushing because Mike turned pink and looked away. “No.”

She just nodded. “Are there any alphas in your life at all? Friends? Family?”

Mike shook his head, “Why should that matter?”

“It's been well documented that a pregnant omega in close proximity to friendly alphas can have a healthier, easier pregnancy. Recent studies have suggested that an alpha's scent and pheromones help trigger a part of the omega's amygdala responsible for the feeling of safety. When someone feels unsafe, the brain will often trigger the stress hormone: cortisol. It can give us more energy and strength, but too much cortisol in the body can also cause sleep disorders.” His doctor paused checking if he was following her. “It sounds like this might be the case for you.” Seeing his nod she continued, “I can send you the studies if you'd like.”

“I'd like that. So, what can we do, if this is the case?” Mike asked tentatively.

“Well, first, I'm going to order some blood tests for you, to confirm.” The doctor opened up a program to write out the blood test request. “Then, I'm going to prescribe you a light sleep aid that should be fine for the baby to take. Just enough for this week I'm afraid. It should help you catch up on some sleep, but it shouldn't be overused. Not getting enough sleep can be a dangerous thing for you and the baby. You really need to be getting enough sleep.

“I'm also going to prescribe you an alpha hormonal cream you're going to rub on your wrists and under your nose before you sleep. Even if this isn't the cause of your sleep problems, this can only benefit you in your pregnancy and well being. But if you don't see a dramatic improvement of your sleep in one week, I need you to let me know. Let's have you book another appointment next week and we can go over your test results and any concerns you have from there,” she finished while typing out the prescription on her computer. She printed out the prescription and signed the bottom, before handing it to him.

Mike took the prescription from her gratefully.

***

Over the next week, Mike began to notice a real decrease in his insomnia. He was starting to sleep again, and deep sleeps at that. The other curious thing Mike had not expected was that the last few symptoms of rejected bond that he'd been feeling had completely disappeared with the use of the cream his doctor had prescribed.

No more chills suddenly during the day. No deep aches to be by his alpha. And surprisingly, though he did still miss Harvey's friendship, he didn't yearn to fix things between them like before. And he didn't feel the need to kneel down in front of Harvey and beg for forgiveness, whenever he saw him in distant passing.

It was like he felt like his old self again. It was almost shocking how good he felt.

Louis seemed to notice the difference too and complimented him on it a week later.

The two had been sitting in his office the next Monday morning, going over procedure for a couple of their cases and Louis had paused at the end, looking up at Mike.

“Mike I want you to know there's no hard feeling about what happened last Monday during that client meeting.”

Mike smiled back calmly.

“And I've noticed what a good job you've been doing since you came in on Tuesday. I especially appreciated your help with the Rockwall case.”

Mike grinned back, a warm feeling growing inside his gut. It was nice to feel appreciated for his work.

“What changed?” Louis tilted his head, curious.

“My doctor was able to prescribe something to help me sleep, and that helped a lot.”

“Isn't it dangerous to take a lot of medications while pregnant?” Louis looked concerned.

It was nice to know someone cared about Mike's health. He felt like there weren't many people he could say cared enough to ask, especially since Grammy had passed.

He shook his head, trying to figure out how to sound vague enough not to alarm the beta, he knew talking about hormones and brain issues sounded serious. “It's just some pheromone creams to help regulate some of my brain functions.”

Louis' eyes widened in concern.

“No, no! Nothing bad, nothing that will affect my work... I just mean,” Mike sighed and felt his cheeks heat. “She prescribed me alpha pheromones to help my omega side feel safer and that helped me sleep.”

“Is the alpha no longer around?” Louis asked indelicately, and then realizing what he asked, tried to back-pedal. “I mean, I have nothing against single omega mother's and of course it's none of my business who you--”

“It's okay, Louis,” Mike put his hands up to stop the beta from continuing. “To answer your question, no, they're not around. It was kind of a... heat thing.”

“I see,” Louis cleared his throat and shuffled some papers around on his desk, awkwardly. “Well, we've finished up here, why don't you go start on the due diligence for the Shaw-Charleston contract.”

Mike stood up, but before he turned to pick up his things, reached across the desk and squeezed Louis' shoulder. “Thanks, Louis.”

Louis smiled shyly at his desk as Mike gathered his papers and left.

***

Since Mike was finally starting to feel a lot more well rested, he also began to use his free hours between work and sleep to search for where he was going to move.

At first the prospect seemed daunting. He had a whole country to choose from and he could legally live in any state, but he had no ties to any of them, except for Grammy being buried in New York. And really, if he so wished, he could even move to another country. He heard that rights for pregnant omegas in Canada and Europe were a lot more progressive than here, especially with regards to healthcare and maternity leave. But that didn't feel right to him.

And if he was being Honest with himself, if there was ever a chance that Harvey would be willing to be in this baby's life, he'd probably have to be somewhat close. That narrowed him down to northeastern states. From there he began looking at information for different areas, checking affordability, crime and education first.

While the numbers rated different cities and states, the ratings didn't mean much to Mike, considering that New York City would be the bottom of most of these lists, and he loved the city so much. He'd been born and raised in this city, he'd buried Grammy and his parents in this city. Also, he kind of wanted to keep in contact with Louis when he left _Pearson Darby_.

So again and again he kept coming back to New Jersey. It was close, affordable and had highly rated state run educational institutions. It wasn't necessarily the top choice according to numbers, but it felt right.

It felt especially like the right choice when he started considering the move itself. He wanted to be able to keep a lot of his furniture, and he had already started buying things for the baby. So unless he wanted to start from almost scratch, New Jersey would be a much cheaper move than many other places he could have picked that were further away.

Plus, with him living in New Jersey, if he didn't go into labour too quickly, he would be able to come back into the city and have his current doctor deliver the baby if he so wished. And he kind of liked that idea.

With his decision made Mike wrote down a few notes to look into Edison and the Newark area before he went to get ready for bed that night. And after applying the cream to his skin, that night he slept like a baby, his mind calm from his decision, and his hormones helped along by the medications.

***  
**Present**: The next couple weeks (5 months after conception)  
The next month seemed to fly by for Mike. He'd really begun in earnest to look for a new place to live, in New Jersey. He'd already decided he would like to stop working right at the beginning of his third trimester. That would give him time to get moved into a new place, but his third trimester was coming up fast.

Also, his doctor had informed him that he would grow the most noticeably pregnant during his third trimester, and he would begin to feel a lot more discomfort and moving around would become more difficult. So if he left work at the beginning of his third trimester, hopefully that would give him enough time to move and get settled before it became too difficult to physically do so.

Plus, he wasn't too keen on the idea of staying around the firm, having to deal with stares when people finally did discover both his pregnancy and gender designation. It would be just safer all around for him and the baby if he left before it became obvious.

And even though his third trimester was coming a lot faster than he would like it too, it was still hard for Mike to imagine what he would look and feel like then. Right now he felt amazing, and despite the small round belly that was starting to appear around his navel, and the occasional flutter near his pelvis, he barely felt pregnant. It was strange to even think that he was just past the halfway point of his pregnancy.

And while his stomach was beginning to slowly inch outward, it was still easily hidden by slightly looser shirts and bulky sweaters under his suit jackets.

Occasionally one of the other baby lawyers poked fun at him for the sudden sweaters that had made their way into his wardrobe, but otherwise his coworkers seemed to be none the wiser about his pregnancy. He kind of liked it that way, too. While his due date was getting closer and closer, he still had two months of work left before he was leaving for good. And he was a bit worried those two months would be the hardest yet.

For the most part, he thought he might be able to get away without telling anyone at work about his condition. Unfortunately, he would still need to talk to the firm's Human Resources about his future maternity leave. Well, them and Louis.

He was kind of dreading talking to HR about leaving. And he was also dreading sitting Louis down to talk about when that would happen, but Louis could be dealt with at a later date.

Having researched all his options, he'd finally decided he needed to talk about his mat leave with HR as soon as possible, to work out his end date. Under the law, HR had to keep an employee's designation and family circumstances confidential. Which meant they could start the process of him leaving the company, without him having to give notice directly to Jessica until his Mat leave arrived. And that would be the best chance for him to leave the firm without revealing too much to the office gossip.

Plus, if HR were able to notify Jessica directly, that would mean that Mike could continue to avoid his boss' boss. And he'd be lying if he didn't admit he had been trying to stay out of Jessica's way as much as possible since the whole Harvey/Darby situation.

So one Wednesday morning during his 5th month, he was working through some briefs, mentally preparing himself for his appointment with HR in the next hour. And as he sat at his desk, the last person in the firm he'd expected to approach him, walked up.

***

Mike looked up from his brief when he heard someone clear their throat, and stared for a second in shock. She was even more beautiful up close than he remembered. It was no wonder Harvey liked her as much as he did.

“Mike Ross, right?” She smiled at him neutrally.

He closed his mouth and nodded.

“I'm Dana Scott,” she said, as if he wouldn't know who she was. Her soft butter-cream beta smell wafted towards him, accompanied by a strong hint of Harvey's alpha musk. It made his stomach churn.

“I know who you are,” he replied, eyes shuttering his emotions. “What do you want?”

She raised an eyebrow at his almost hostile tone. “That's it? You’re not going to ask what you can do for me?”

“I work directly under the purview of Louis Litt, so I'm sure one of the other associates can help you if you need something work related. And we have absolutely nothing to talk about, personally.”

She clicked her tongue at him. “Harvey told me you were an asshole, but since that was coming from Harvey who's one of the biggest assholes I know, I took that with a grain of salt. But he really wasn't wrong, was he.” She smirked at him smugly.

He wanted to stand up and slap the smirk of her face, but instead of engaging in her game, he took a calming breath and turned back to his briefs, ignoring her.

Which is why he could forgive himself for jumping at the loud slapping sound, as the 3 large stacks of bound pages she was holding were dropped onto his desk.

“You might work under Louis Litt, but I'm a senior partner, and my work trumps his. Have this contract edited, fact checked and on my desk by the end of the day.”

Mike looked at the contract and then scowled up at her. “You might not have noticed, but I have my own work to do for the firm. None of my cases should be prioritized under your work.”

“Then I guess you'd better work faster, hadn't you.” Her sarcastic smile showed off her perfect white teeth, before she turned and walked away.

Mike looked at the stacks and groaned. There went him hoping to leave the office before 7:00 pm that night.

***

“Wait, why are you asking about the firm's maternity leave policies?” The beta across the desk asked in confusion.

“I'm asking because I'm pregnant and I would like to go on maternity leave before my pregnancy becomes too uncomfortable to be able to come into the office,” Mike stated simply.

The HR manager stared at him for a few moments, before she could cover up her shock with professionalism.

She cleared her throat. “Well, New York State law requires us to provide you with 12 weeks of leave from work, with half pay, once you give birth.”

“And before I give birth?” Mike pushed.

“There is 8 weeks of optional unpaid leave you may take before or after those 12 weeks.” She frowned at him. “But most of our employees who've found themselves in this situation don't take--”

“Well I would like to. I also know that I have another 2 weeks of vacation saved up from last year.”

She stared at him as if he were asking for something insane. Considering how little time lawyers took off, maybe he was. “You do understand that if you take that much of an extended leave, we may not be able to offer you a position back at this firm.”

“I know you have to offer me a position at the same rate of pay when I come back maternity leave, or offer me severance. So please don't try to make me feel bad for wanting to take time for my baby.”

The beta frowned at him, but turned to her computer to pull up some forms. “I guess I'll get the forms for you.”

She printed the forms and called her assistant to bring them in from the printer. “Since you haven't given birth yet, and there is no birth certificate to go with the forms, we'll have to put your leave under general medical leave. If you're sure you want to do this, you must take form 7344b,” she indicated the form on top, “to your doctor to fill out and sign, confirming your medical condition. You'll also need to take form 7344c to your current manager and have them fill out and sign this form. You and I will fill out 7344a together right now. Your maternity leave, or NYPFL, cannot be filed until there is a legal birth certificate.”

“I need to come in after I've _just_ given birth to file for my maternity leave?” Mike asked incredulously. He knew giving birth would be an incredible, physical ordeal. And coming into the office to fill out forms after that sounded horrendous.

The beta shook her head and indicated a second stack. “You can prepare the forms in advance. You'll of course need to leave the birth date blank. After you've given birth, you may date and sign the forms, then fax them to us with a copy of the birth certificate.”

“Alright. Where do we get started?”

***

Mike ended up staying at his desk until almost midnight that night, proofing those stupid briefs for Scottie. By the time he'd finally finished and was ready to drop off the stacks of paper, he was falling asleep at his desk. As he leaned down on his arms, he felt as if the words were permanently printed beneath his heavy eyelids.

Months ago, before he came to work for Louis, Mike would have thought nothing about staying this late to finish work on something for Harvey, and he would have barely felt tired by midnight. Now, just over 5 months into his pregnancy, he felt like he was asleep on his feet.

Speaking of feet...

It took him a while to convince his feet that he wanted to stand, and when he finally did, he felt a bit like a tree swaying in a heavy wind. Using the side of his cubicle for balance, Mike straightened and picked up the stack of contracts and started down the hall to the partner office suites.

Mike felt so tired he could barely keep his head up, as he trudged down the dark, silent hallway; it felt like an anvil. But he wasn't so tired that he didn't notice the light on in Harvey's office, as he passed by.

Pausing just beyond Donna's desk, he looked through the glass doors, expecting to see the alpha's dark head bent over his work. While he had worked with the alpha, the sight had been a common occurrence, head down, working thoughtfully on some client's case, with the rest of the firm dark and silent around the alpha.

But tonight Mike was met with... nothing. Harvey's office was softly lit and there was a file spilled across his desk, but the alpha was nowhere to be seen.

Shrugging, Mike turned to continue on to Scottie's office, only to come face to face with the very man he'd been thinking about, headed back to his office from the direction of the bathrooms.

The alpha's head lifted up from where it had been studying his phone, and his steps paused as their eyes met.

There was an awkward beat of silence, where the two studied each other.

Harvey looked... tired. There were dark circles under his eyes and his suit looked rumpled.

“Harvey,” Mike said quietly in greeting, “How are you?” He asked because he didn't know what else to say.

Harvey shrugged noncommittally.

A small breeze of air drifted past Mike, and Mike could smell Scottie's soft butter-cream scent all over the alpha.

It made his shoulders tense when he thought about how much she would have needed to touch been to Harvey to get her scent all over him so strongly.

Mike gritted his teeth for a moment, and then smiled as sincerely as he could manage. “I'm happy for you.”

“What?” Harvey looked at him skeptically.

“For you and Scottie.”

“Do you have a point, Mike?”

“I'm just trying to be happy for you, Harvey. That's what friends do.”

Harvey scoffed, “If we were ever friends at all, one thing we didn't do was talk about each other's personal lives.”

Mike felt like he'd been punched in the gut. “How can you say that? After all that time we worked together.”

“Because of how you betrayed me like all that meant nothing, when Jessica offered you another choice.”

“Jessica didn't offer me a choice, Harvey, she held a gun to the head of my career and yours.”

Harvey shook his head in disbelief. “I can't believe you would forget one of the first lessons I ever taught you Mike. When someone has a gun to your head you take the gun, or pull out a bigger one, or you call their bluff. Or you do any one of 146 other things.” Harvey sighed, silence falling between them for a moment. “But no matter how badly you handled that, the thing that made me realize we weren't even friends was that you never came to tell me. You never explained.”

“I tried,” Mike said desperately. “You wouldn't listen.” Mike felt his eyes sting with tears and he looked away for a second, wiping his tired face with his hand. “Harvey, please. I don't want to fight. Can we forget all of that for one second? There's something I need to tell you. And it's more important than--”

“Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it,” Harvey cut him off, his voice impatient and tired. “Leave me alone, Mike. I've got work to do.”

Mike knew his face must have reflected how upset he felt. And he could have kicked himself for even considering telling Harvey about the little bean right now. But the opportunity had felt too perfect. The two of them face to face, alone in the office. For a brief moment, the glowing lights from the city shining in through the tall windows had made him feel they were the only two people in the world, but now they just made him feel fragile.

He needed to get out of there before he started crying. And he knew he would, his eyes felt itchy with tears.

Harvey looked away and sighed. “Look I--”

“It's alright,” Mike said quietly. “I can take a hint. I can tell when I'm not wanted.” He made to walk by Harvey, towards the glass door behind the alpha. “I just need to get past you to put this contract on Ms. Scott's desk.” He motioned to the stacks folded in his arms.

When Harvey couldn’t find an answer but to stare, Mike brushed passed him to the next office along with a quiet, “Excuse me.”

He slipped past the alpha and into Scottie's office, dropped the stack on her cleared desk as quickly as possible, and then made his way to the elevators without looking back.

A couple of tears slipped down his face, but he didn't dare wipe them away until he was safely in the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Do _not_ take anything I've written about maternity leave as fact. While researching this I ran into many problems. It is _not_ law that your employer must take you back after maternity leave (it is law in my country), at least I couldn't find anywhere that said it was. Also, while I found some sources that said you could take an 8 week unpaid leave on top of the 12 weeks, most did not list that, and the information I did find about it was vague and maybe not true? Apparently also, in NY state only 8 of the 12 maternity leave weeks get half pay, the other 4 are unpaid. Don't forget that you cannot go on mat leave until you legally provide a birth certificate. Yikes!! Generally, the laws felt purposefully confusing and difficult to take advantage of. (What the heck is going on with your maternity leave laws usa?!) So please excuse my inaccuracies!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has left me lovely comments! They really help keep me going!! <3
> 
> Next chapter: Super excited for Mike to finally leave the firm, also he's going to get to find out the gender of his baby! I'm taking bets people! jk! :D
> 
> P.s.s.s. I have uploaded Harvey's POV (link here!) for this chapter as a separate little fic, and both are now apart of a much larger series! Go check that out and let me know what you think!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers! I hope you are all safe in isolation right now. This chapter really challenged me. I was laid off two weeks ago and kind of lost all inspiration to write. This chapter kind of sat, half written for most of that time. And then my wonderful beta [DrizzlesandFizzles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrizzlesandFizzles/profile) got in touch with me and really helped motivate me to get writing again. She's the best, so everyone please show her some love.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, and please check out the Scottie POV ficlet side piece I wrote to go with this chapter.

**Present**: The next two months (5 to 6 months after conception)

Once Mike got the go ahead from HR that all of his forms were complete and received (except for the one his supervisor had to sign), Mike tried to find a good time to bring up his fast approaching leave with Louis.

It wasn't exactly easy. Mike was trying to find a way to bring up the topic naturally. But whether Louis was skillfully avoiding the topic, or because they’d had a spike in new cases, their conversations had increasingly been only about their clients and Louis was speaking about personal topics less and less.

Usually the only personal topics the two of them had to talk about were the little bean (of which Louis often had sweet questions or awkward suggestions) and Louis' cat (the man talked about that thing incessantly). But the last week or so saw the beta steering their conversation away from those topics, rather than dwell on them, as he had wont to do earlier in their working partnership.

The next Thursday after Mike got the forms he finally snapped, forcing the subject rather than trying to approach it delicately.

“Louis, I _really_ need to talk to you about something.”

“Yes,” Louis said absently, turning the pages of a brief they had been discussing that morning. “Whoever wrote this did an appalling job on fairly splitting up the assets between the two sister corporations.”

“No, Louis, it's not about work. I want to talk to you about my leave. My due date is approaching rather fast.”

“Mike,” Louis warned dangerously. “Let's not talk about this now.”

“Why not? We have to talk about it sometime. And I can't go on leave until you sign this,” Mike slapped the form he'd been carrying around for a week, onto Louis' desk.

Louis looked at it blankly for a moment before pushing it aside.

“Louis, please. Why are you being like this?” Mike begged.

Louis clenched his jaw, not looking up from his desk. “Because you'll go and never come back. And I'll lose you from my life forever.” The beta finally looked up at him, his brown eyes sad. “I knew all week you were trying to bring it up. I got a phone call from HR on Monday asking if I had any paperwork for them in the interoffice mail. They didn't tell me what kind of paperwork, but it didn't take a genius to put it together.”

“Oh Louis,” Mike said softly.

“No. I'm not going to sign your form. I'm not going to lose my only friend, Mike.”

Mike smiled at him wistfully. “You're not going to lose me as a friend, Louis.” He paused, for a contemplative moment. “I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't have a lot of friends either. Not in the office or outside of it. I don't want to lose the only friend _I_ have either.”

“You have Rachel,” Louis frowned.

Mike shook his head, “Not really. I've talked to her twice since the New Years' party, and that party was a couple of months ago.”

“What about Donna and Harvey?”

“You know they're not speaking to me.”

“Harold?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “You fired him almost a year ago and I haven't spoken much to him since.” He leaned forward in his chair and put his hand over one of Louis' clenched hands. “Louis, you're my closest friend. You're the only one, baring my doctor and HR, that knows about the baby.”

Louis' eyes opened in surprise, the realization that their friendship was mutual dawning on his face. “Am I your... best friend?”

Mike grinned, “Yeah, I guess you are.”

“Oh well then.” He looked down, a soft smile on his face, then looked up, his expression turning serious. “And friends help each other out.”

“Definitely.” Mike couldn't stop smiling now.

“Then I guess I'll sign this.” Louis picked up the form and began to scan the information on it. “On two conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“That I'm the baby's godfather, and that you come back to work here after your maternity leave.”

Mike felt as if his throat was full of lead. He looked down at his lap, trying to figure out what to say as Louis read through the forms. “Louis,” he said quietly. “I'm happy to grant your first request. There's no one in the world I'd rather be the baby's godfather...”

Mike was silent for a moment, trying to choose his words carefully. “But I'm not coming back afterward.”

Louis looked up at him, his deep brown eyes hurt and soulful. “Why?”

“I...” Mike wasn't sure what to say, and his hands felt cold and sweaty. He couldn't tell Louis _now_, could he? It would mean that Louis would then also know about his fraud and be culpable in the eyes of the law. And that meant Louis would either feel guilty until Mike left, or he'd have to report him to the bar association.

Mike hoped Louis would choose not to turn him in, but it would be kinder for Mike to not force Louis into making that choice. So he told a half truth instead. “I wanna be there for my baby, the way my parents weren't able to for me.”

“There's another reason though. I can see it in your face.” Louis looked furtively into his eyes.

“Yes. But I don't want to talk about it right now.” Mike was quiet for a few seconds, he'd momentarily forgotten that for all of Louis' faults and difficulties making friends, he was a very intelligent and sharp-minded lawyer, who could read facial expressions of witnesses extremely well. “But I promise I will tell you when the time is right.”

Louis sighed mournfully, “Alright. I'm holding you to that.”

Mike smiled sadly and nodded.

With his nod, Louis bent down and signed the medical leave forms before handing them back to Mike.

***

Mike left his Williamsburg apartment very early on Saturday morning, so he could make the hour and 20 minute trip across New York and the Hudson River to Newark, New Jersey.

Originally he'd been looking at apartments in a few different cities in New Jersey, but had eventually narrowed his searches to Newark and Edison. Today he had meetings with agents and owners about apartments in Newark, and next weekend he had appointments scheduled to see apartments in Edison.

He was hoping to find a place in Newark, since it was a much shorter commute to New York, but he did allow that there was the chance he wouldn't like any of the apartments he saw today, since he was only seeing places within his budget.

As he transferred to another subway line at 6:30 am that Saturday morning, Mike longed for his bicycle. But he had to admit that taking the train was a lot easier on his body these days. Riding his bike would have tired him out too quickly, especially with the extra 10 pounds he was carrying from his pregnancy. And his doctor had been firm about him not tiring himself out unnecessarily.

By the time he was walking into Pennsylvania Station to catch a train that would take him under the Hudson, and across New Jersey to Newark, his stomach was rumbling.

He had been trying to keep to his doctor's advice, and not get into the habit of “eating for two”, as the baby would be getting enough nourishment from his regular diet right now. But ever since his sleeping had gotten back on track, he'd found himself ravenous at all hours of the day.

So in a moment of indulgence, he got a cup of herbal tea and a donut at an amazing smelling coffee stand before making his way to the right terminal.

And while herbal tea was fine enough, there were some days he really wished he could have some coffee. He really missed it.

The trip under the Hudson was unremarkable. He'd managed to grab himself a seat on a mostly empty train car, and went through his upcoming appointments on his phone. But as the train came out of the tunnel and ran above ground, Mike couldn't help but think that New Jersey was much more... green and spacious than New York.

Mike wouldn't call himself high class, but he was cultured enough. He'd never traveled outside of New York before, but had seen plenty of the world through movies and television. But seeing how different New Jersey looked from New York with his own eyes was a bit of a shock.

At first he worried he was going to feel homesick with how different it was from the city, but strangely, Mike found himself feeling excited. This was the place he was going to raise his baby. The industrial areas they were currently passing didn't look that exciting, but he felt _good_ about this place.

He finally got off the train at the Newark Penn Station. His appointments were scattered through Belmont, Lincoln park and North Ironbound, so he'd be taking cabs between further appointments.

Over the next five hours, one by one, each appointment was met with disappointment. Either the place had already been rented, or the apartment felt unsafe, too dark or too small.

With a heavy heart, Mike approached his 12th and last appointment of the day, a small brownstone building that was only a 10 minute walk from the station where he would catch his train home.

The building had been converted into four apartments, two on the bottom, two on the top, with the apartment he was looking at facing east looking out over the street.

The landlord seemed kind enough, in that absent way that landlords who didn't live on property didn't seem to care as much about their renter's personal lives.

When Mike walked into the open living room and kitchen area, he could see in his mind's eye exactly where he would put the rocking chair he'd purchased a couple weeks ago. It had been one piece of furniture all the blogs had told him was a must have with a new baby. And he could just imagine it beside the bright window, with him sitting in it, rocking a fussy baby to sleep.

After checking all the appliances and plumbing worked, he turned to the landlord who had been showing him the small but functional one-bedroom suite.

“When can I sign the lease?”

The beta man smiled back and brought out the paperwork.

***

Monday morning felt like it had come too soon. He'd spent the rest of the weekend canceling his appointments for next weekend, boxing up some of his books and arranging for movers to pick up his stuff in three weeks time.

Now that he had a place to move into, he felt a little less stressed. It just felt like everything was going to work out smoothly.

It helped that his work leave was coming soon, only three weeks away. Plus, he was pretty excited about having another ultrasound to see the baby this week, and Louis had agreed to help him move when he'd talked to him on the phone the night before.

It was strange. When he'd first started working for Louis, he couldn't have imagined ever enjoying the man's company, let alone phoning him on his day off to tell him about the new apartment he'd signed a lease for.

But here he was. He was friendless except for his best friend, a beta who everyone else seemed to find rude and unsociable, but to him was quickly becoming someone he could trust and lean on during any difficulty. He was just three months and two weeks away from giving birth, and had spent the entire pregnancy without a partner or alpha. He was moving in three weeks to a new apartment he’d just found and he was having to quit a job he loved, never to return.

Most of the difficult and stressful parts were done. Now the only real challenges left were going to be packing for the move and giving birth.

He wanted to add telling Harvey about the baby to that list of challenges, but he wasn't sure he was all that keen on facing the alpha again, especially after how they'd left it a couple weeks ago.

Mike was sick of being blamed for how things had gone wrong for Harvey in the merger, and he wasn't interested in talking face-to-face with a man who couldn't see reason.

At this point, he didn't feel any remorse about not telling the alpha about little bean.

***

The next Wednesday afternoon, Mike locked his computer just after 1:00 pm, and took a late lunch to go to his doctor's appointment.

His stomach had been squirming with both excitement and nerves all morning. The hours had passed by so slowly as he'd patiently waited, so there wasn't anything that was going to stop him now.

He'd cleared the appointment with Louis, so he should be able to get away without being held up.

Of course just as he was walking out of the bullpen, Scottie was walking in, and the two of them almost collided.

“Oh Ross,” She said absently, brushing a dark strand of hair out of her face. “Just the person I wanted to see–”

“Nope, sorry,” he cut her off, not wanting to deal with any of her bullshit. He was in too good of a mood. “If it's anything case work related, you can take it up with my supervisor, Louis Litt. I have somewhere I have to be.”

He glanced at her for long enough to see her jaw drop at his brisk tone, before he strode off towards the elevator, not even giving a fuck.

Maybe he'd regret that, but he had two weeks left in this office, and an appointment he'd be late for if he didn't leave right now.

****

Mike left his suit jacket, sweater and shoes on a side chair as his doctor gestured to the exam table. He knew the routine now after the other two ultrasounds he'd had earlier in his pregnancy.

The doctor was putting on a pair of rubber gloves as there was a soft knock on the door, and a nurse walked in wheeling in the portable sonogram machine on a cart.

“If you could just undo your pants and lie back on the table,” the doctor told him kindly, as he undid the bottom half of his shirt.

Mike leaned back and tried to relax as the nurse and doctor set everything up.

“This will be a little cold,” the doctor warned before smearing the transmission jelly on his swollen lower abdomen. “Your weight is at a really healthy number right now, and everything is looking really good on the outside, so let's see how your little one is doing on the inside.”

The doctor smiled at him for a moment, before the sound of his baby's heartbeat began to play through the speakers of the machine, and she turned away to look at the screen.

For a few tense moments, she was silent, looking at the screen intensely.

“Well,” she turned to him, “At first glance, everything seems to look very good!”

Mike sighed a breath of relief. Other than the sleeplessness that had plagued him at the beginning of his second trimester, his pregnancy had progressed relatively smoothly. But in those few moments of silence, everything that could have gone wrong and be noticed at this point in his pregnancy ran through his head. Really, some of the problems he'd read about online had been horrific and made him a bit anxious to think about. Maybe it was selfish, but he didn't want any of those things for his baby, especially since he was doing this alone and didn't have a partner to help mitigate some of his worry. But he trusted that his doctor would inform him if anything looked wrong.

“I'll be looking through these images again more thoroughly after clinic hours to make sure, but from what I can see here, it looks like your baby is in good health.” Her smile was wide on her dark face.

She paused, looking back at the screen and pointed out the baby's head, arms and legs. “Now, we are about a week shy of your third trimester. But I can tell the baby's gender, so do you want to know the gender of your little one, today?”

Mike felt an excited smile curl across his lips and he nodded.

“You're having a boy, Mike,” she smiled, turning back to the screen to point out the baby's penis.

Mike smiled silently, unable to think of anything to say. He wasn't really surprised he was having a boy. Since both he and Harv... the baby's alpha were males, it was statistically more likely he'd have a boy. 67% more likely, even.

And really he was a bit relieved. Other than the beta women he'd dated in the past, he didn't know that much about women. He would have really struggled with all the things he would have had to help a daughter with.

He knew he'd probably regret thinking this, but he felt like he could handle raising a little boy on his own.

***

The next two weeks of work zoomed by. Nights were spent packing or reading about baby development, and wrapping up anything small enough to fit in a box. Days were spent finishing up a lot of due diligence for cases he was working on with Louis.

The last week of his work, Mike noticed that his face looked a lot more swollen than he'd ever seen it. It kind of looked like he'd gained 20 pounds, rather than the 11 pounds his scale told him he'd gained.

His doctor had warned him of water retention and swelling in strange places, but he figured it wouldn’t be a symptom he’d experience, especially considering how few he'd experienced for the end half of his second trimester.

At first he worried if anyone at work would say anything about his swollen face. And he did get a lot of long looks from his coworkers that week, but other than a few more insincere _“How are you, Mike?”_'s than usual, that week wasn't all that different than the previous few.

Well, except for Louis.

Louis was quiet and sad the whole week. Mike had tried to console the beta, but Louis was acting like his family and his cat had died all at once.

On Mike's last Thursday before his leave started, Louis and Norma came by his cubicle to pull him away for lunch out of the office.

“Louis,” Mike said kindly as the three of them rode the elevator down. “You don't need to act like I'm dying. You'll still see me.”

Norma looked like she was trying hard not to laugh, from where she was standing on the other side of Louis. She'd had front row seats to the blossoming of Mike and Louis' friendship, and she knew how much Louis was going to miss Mike, but she also always seemed to find Louis' temper tantrums amusing.

“It's just...” Louis pouted, starting at the mirrored elevator doors. “We won't be working together anymore. And there will be no one around to tell all my fears about poor Bruno's health problems!”

Mike felt his eyebrows rise in both disbelief and humour.

“I'm not the only one who's going to miss you!” Louis was quiet for a moment. “You know, Norma told me she wished she could have thrown you a baby shower before you left.”

Norma had found out about the little bean accidentally a week ago, when Louis had absentmindedly asked her to pick up the baby present he'd ordered for Mike from a boutique that made special order baby quilts. It hadn't taken her that much of an intuitive leap when she'd seen Louis give the gift-wrapped quilt to Mike the next day.

And it had been a lovely present. A soft yellow quilt with squares featuring cartoon scales and law books in between soft solid yellow squares in different shades and textures.

“I will miss you Mike.” Norma looked over Louis shoulder to smile at Mike. “And I will _also_ miss that you aren't around to listen to Louis' complaints about his cat's health.”

Mike laughed, “I'll miss you both as well. But we'll keep in touch.”

Norma nodded wisely as the elevator reached the main floor and the doors opened.

The odd trio made their way across the lobby and outside, to where a car was waiting at the curb to take them.

As they exited the building, they passed by Harvey heading into the building, coffee and court briefcase in hand.

The alpha paused for a moment to watch them, and Mike tried to ignore the confused look Harvey shot the three of them.

***

And finally, there it was, his last day of work. Mike walked in that morning, feeling as if a 50 pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

All he had to do was get through the day and he would be away from this shiny building where he'd committed some of his most stupid mistakes.

He spent most of the day cleaning up his case files, forwarding follow-ups to the right office, clearing digital files off his work computer and cleaning out his desk.

By 3:30 pm he'd finished all his tasks. And with nothing else to really do, Mike opened a blank document and began to type.

He found himself writing a letter to Harvey. Explaining himself, defending the decisions he made with Jessica, and finally explaining about the little bean. He said all the things he longed to say to Harvey that he'd never been given the chance to. How he still valued Harvey's friendship and advice even after everything, but how he wasn't sure he would ever forgive Harvey for how the alpha had treated him in some of his lowest moments.

By 4:30 he'd finished and edited the document a few times before printing it out and making sure there was no digital copy of the letter.

He folded the letter and stuffed it in his pocket.

Standing up from his desk, he picked up the bankers box filled with all the personal items his cubicle had accumulated over the last two years of working at this firm, and made his way across the office level to the side of the building that housed the paralegal offices.

Sure enough, Rachel was hard at work at her desk. The sun setting through the window created a soft orange glow over the beautiful beta woman who Mike had once thought himself in love with. Seeing her bent over her work, the light highlighting her delicate features made Mike wonder if the little bean had never come along, if maybe he would still be in love with her.

Tucking the box under one arm, he knocked on her door.

“Mike,” she looked up at him in surprise. “I didn't expect to see you today.”

And that was the crux of what had happened to their friendship. These days it was a surprise to even see or speak to one another.

“I wanted to come by and say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” She looked confused.

“I'm going on medical leave. I don't know when I'll see you again.”

She blinked for a moment before nodding. “I'm glad to hear you're going on medical leave. I wasn't going to say anything, but I've noticed you gaining a bit of unhealthy looking weight in the last few months. I hope you are able to get help for whatever it is.”

Mike winced internally, and tried not to show the hurt on his face. He looked at her expectant face, knowing she was waiting for him to explain what was going on. And he found he was okay with her not knowing. She'd been a good friend when he'd needed it in the beginning, but they were in such different places in their lives now. There was no chemistry, even friendly chemistry, left between them.

“Thanks.” He smiled insincerely. “Stay in touch?” He asked knowing that she wouldn't.

“For sure. Have a good weekend!” She turned back to her work, already moving on with her life.

Mike nodded and turned away from her office towards the stairs. He only had two more things to do before he was ready to leave these offices for good.

He made his way up a level to the executive offices and took the familiar path down towards Harvey and Louis' offices.

He paused as he came around the bend and was able to see both Harvey's office and Donna's desk out front. Donna was at her desk, getting ready for the end of the day and Harvey was in his office, sitting on his sofa talking quietly to Scottie.

Mike closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Scottie was still there when he opened his eyes. They looked so close and intimate even just during a quiet professional conversation, and it really cemented in Mike's eyes how far him and Harvey had grown apart. He remembered back when it was him sitting on that sofa, listening to Harvey’s ideas about cases.

Mike hadn't just lost Harvey's presence in his work life, but his personal life too. Once he thought he knew everything about Harvey’s current life. Not about his past, Harvey had always been mysterious like that, but now Mike knew nothing about what was happening in Harvey's life. He wondered if Harvey loved Scottie. He wondered if they treated each other right. He wondered if it affected their work. If they made love in the alpha's huge bed and then came to work everyday having to keep a bit of distance.

“Can I help you with something, Mike?” Donna asked briskly, shaking him out of his contemplation of Harvey and Scottie.

Even after all this time, Donna still hadn't forgiven him either. Although to be fair to her, she'd never treated him rudely since he'd started working with Louis, just impersonally. Like they'd never been friends.

He looked back at Harvey. The letter burned a hole in his pocket, but Mike knew this wasn't the right time. Maybe it never would be, but Mike was coming to terms with the fact that maybe that was okay.

“Mike?” Donna was frowning at him, and he turned back to look at her.

“Uh, nope, nothing. Just lost in thought. Have a good weekend, Donna.” He nodded to the feisty redhead before turning away and continuing down the hall to Louis' office.

Norma was just leaving when he reached Louis' office.

“Goodbye Norma,” he smiled at her. He hadn't become super close to her, but she'd become a constant in his life over the past four months he'd worked for Louis.

“Goodbye Mike,” she said softly and reached over to him to squeeze his arm. “Good luck with everything.”

“Thanks,” he smiled sheepishly.

“And I expect to see a picture once the little one finally arrives.”

Mike let out a quiet chuckle. “I'm sure Uncle Louis will have pictures in spades, once the little guy arrives.”

Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment. He'd never told her before that he was having a boy. “I'm sure he will.” She grinned at him one more time before putting on her coat and heading off towards the elevator bank.

Mike watched her for a moment and then stepped into Louis' office.

Louis paused from where he was reading through some discovery on his computer to look up at him. “Mike.”

“I'm done for the day,” he nodded down to the box under his left arm.

The beta walked around his desk and took the box away from Mike, setting it down on one of the chairs before turning back and pulling Mike into a tight, unexpected hug.

Mike let out a breath of amusement and hugged the usually prickly beta back.

When they let go, Louis turned away, averting his suspiciously damp eyes. “All ready for tomorrow?”

Mike smiled at the redirect away from the beta’s emotional display. “Yep. Just a couple of clothes and bedding to pack in the morning and I'm ready.”

Louis nodded and picked up the box, handing it back to Mike.

“I'll see you tomorrow, Louis.”

Louis nodded again. “Bright and early.”

***

Mike left Louis in his office, but paused by Norma's desk. He set his box down on her desk and pulled out the letter he'd written to Harvey.

For a couple seconds he stared at it before crumpling it up and chucking it into the trash bin. He knew the cleaners would be around to empty in the next half hour or so, and then he would try to never think about that letter again.

He picked up his box and headed off to the elevators. Thoughts of his baby and upcoming move already dominating his thoughts.

He didn't see Louis watch him throw the paper away, from behind his desk. And he didn't see Louis wait until he'd gone, approach Norma's desk and dig the letter out of the trash.

He also didn't see the look of anger and horror on Louis' face as the beta read the heart wrenching confessions he'd written Harvey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your wonderful reviews! I adore seeing where you're all thinking it's going to go. Some of your guesses are so spot on, and sometimes you make me think about what I'm writing from another perspective. So thanks!
> 
> Don't forget to go check out [Scottie's POV from this chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367385) and let me know what you think of it! :)


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